• READ MORE: Scientists reveal where Jesus was born - and it WASN'T Bethlehem

By MICHAEL HAVIS FOR MAILONLINE

A place of worship sealed up by the ancestors of Jesus has been discovered in the ancient heart of Jerusalem, frozen in time for nearly 3,000 years.

Carved into the rock near Temple Mount, the structure comprises eight rooms, containing an altar, a sacred standing stone, and presses for olive oil and wine.

And experts believe its destruction may have featured in the Bible, which describes how Hezekiah – one of Jesus' ancestors – smashed idolatrous places of worship.

This was one such place, according to Eli Shukron, exacavation director for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), who dated it to Hezekiah's reign.

He said: 'The structure ceased to function during the 8th century BC, possibly as part of king Hezekiah's religious reform.

'According to the Bible, Hezekiah sought to centralise worship at the temple in Jerusalem, abolishing the ritual sites scattered across the kingdom.

'The Bible describes how, during the First Temple period, additional ritual sites operated outside the temple.

'It says two kings of Judah – Hezekiah and Josiah – implemented reforms to eliminate these sites and concentrate worship at the temple.'

A place of worship sealed up by the ancestors of Jesus has been discovered in the ancient heart of Jerusalem , frozen in time for nearly 3,000 years

Carved into the rock near Temple Mount, the structure comprises eight rooms, containing an altar, a sacred standing stone, and presses for olive oil and wine

Experts believe its destruction may have featured in the Bible, which describes how Hezekiah – one of Jesus' ancestors – smashed idolatrous places of worship

Both kings are identified as paternal grandfathers of Jesus by the Gospel of Matthew.

Hezekiah's crackdown against pagan places of worship – or 'high places' – is described in the second book of Kings.

It recounts how he 'removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones' and 'did what was right in the eyes of the lord'.

Remarkably, the sacred standing stone at the site survived his onslaught.

Shukron called it 'the most dramatic and important find in the excavation'.

'This is what makes this place a cultic site,' he said.

'When we uncovered it, we found it standing in its place, with stones around it.

'The standing stone was covered with earth; it was preserved – no one destroyed it.

This was a place of worship, according to Eli Shukron, exacavation director for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), who dated it to Hezekiah's reign

'The Bible describes how, during the First Temple period, additional ritual sites operated outside the temple,' Eli Shukron said

Archaeologists also found a hoard of artifacts from the 8th century BC, sealed behind a stone wall in a cave. These included cooking pots, jars with fragments of ancient Hebrew inscriptions, loom weights, scarabs, stamped seals with decorative motifs, and grinding stones used for crushing grains

'When we found it, it was exactly as it was here 2,800 years ago.'

Another room featured the remains of an altar, identifiable by a drainage channel which still ran from its corner.

And in one part of the site, mysterious v-shaped carvings marked the floor.

Their true purpose is lost to history, but they might once have supported some sort of tripod with ritual use.

Archaeologists also found a hoard of artifacts from the 8th century BC, sealed behind a stone wall in a cave.

These included cooking pots, jars with fragments of ancient Hebrew inscriptions, loom weights, scarabs, stamped seals with decorative motifs, and grinding stones used for crushing grains.

The site lies in the ancient heart of Jerusalem – sometimes called the City of David – just a few hundred metres from Temple Mount, and once co-existed with the First Temple there.

Excavations began in 2010, but the northern part of the ruins was discovered in 1909 by Montague Parker, a British adventurer searching for the Ark of the Covenant and other temple treasures.

A 1585 depiction of king Hezekiah smashing the pagan places of worship

Amichai Eliyahu, Israel's Minister of Heritage, said: 'This unique structure uncovered in the City of David is an exciting testimony to Jerusalem's rich past.

'Such discoveries make our connection and historic roots – going back thousands of years – tangible, in Jerusalem and other sites where the Jewish culture and belief system emerged.'

Shukron published his findings in 'Atiqot, the IAA's in-house journal.

READ MORE

• Scientists reveal exactly where Jesus was born - and say it probably WASN'T in Bethlehem

RELATED INFO AND VIDEOS

The new structure was found carved into the eastern slope of the City of David

Credit: Michael Havis

Various ancient artefacts were found sealed behind a stone wall

Credit: Michael Havis

An artist's impression of how the structure would have looked before it was destroyed

Credit: Michael Havis

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17-01-2025 om 20:54 geschreven door peter  

New Study Identifies Earth’s Secret Metal Highways Beneath Ancient Continents

Research from Macquarie University shows that critical metals accumulate around the edges of ancient continental cores due to silica loss in rising carbonate-rich melts. This discovery highlights new exploration targets essential for supporting a green economy.

New research from Macquarie University has pinpointed likely locations of essential metals crucial for advancing a green economy.

Transitioning to a green economy demands significantly more critical metals—such as copper, rare earth elements, and cobalt—than current supplies can meet. To address this shortage, it is essential to discover new metal resources formed through different geological processes in previously unexplored regions.

New research published on January 8, 2025, in Nature, led by Dr. Chunfei Chen during his postdoctoral work with the Earth Evolution research group at Macquarie University, sheds light on where and how critical metals likely accumulate. The study identifies the margins of ancient continental cores as promising locations for these metal deposits and explains the geological mechanisms behind their formation.

“These cores are the thickest, bowl-shaped, parts of tectonic plates. Melts that form below their centers will flow upwards and outwards towards the edges, so that volcanic activity is common around their edges,” says Chen.

The Role of Carbonate-Rich Melts in Metal Concentration

Previous high-pressure experiments in the Earth Evolution group have shown that initial melts at around 200 kilometers depth are rich in carbonate but contain much less silica than most rock melts.

Chunfei Chen in laboratory.

Credit: Macquarie University

The new experiments by Dr Chen and colleagues show that these melts will lose silica and become almost pure carbonate as they flow upwards and outwards beneath the continental cores.

Distinguished Professor Stephen Foley from Macquarie’s School of Natural Sciences explains the link to critical metals lies in this change in melt composition.

“The initial melts can carry lots of critical metals and sulfur, but our new results show that these are dropped by the melt as it loses silica. This causes concentrations of critical metals and sulfur in linear arrangements around the edges of thick continental cores,” says Professor Foley.

The research also confirms that mantle samples brought to the surface in volcanoes in these areas do indeed contain more sulfur and copper than elsewhere on the continents.

This new work explains recent observations by researchers at the Australian National University and Geoscience Australia that found critical metals are accumulated around the edges of continent cores, and brings these areas into sharp focus for future exploration activities.

• Reference: “Sulfide-rich continental roots at cratonic margins formed by carbonated melts” by Chunfei Chen, Michael W. Förster, Svyatoslav S. Shcheka, Isra S. Ezad, Joshua J. Shea, Yongsheng Liu, Dorrit E. Jacob and Stephen F. Foley, 8 January 2025, Nature.
  DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08316-w
• Funding: Australian Research Council, Key R&D Program of China, Key Program of NSFC-Tongyong Union Foundation, Macquarie University, NERC Biomolecular Analysis Facility

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14-01-2025 om 23:42 geschreven door peter  

Welcome to hell! The 5 locations around the globe that scientists believe could be the gates to the underworld

• READ MORE: Scientists reveal all the evidence Adam and Eve really DID exist

By WILIAM HUNTER

If you've ever told someone to 'go to hell', you probably didn't have a real location in mind.

While most people no longer believe that hell is a physical place, that has not always been the case.

Scattered across the world, there are five terrifying locations that are claimed to be entrances to the underworld.

And experts now say that there could be some surprising scientific truths to back them up.

From the nightmarish location that inspired Jesus' account of hell to the cave that mysteriously kills anyone who enters, these locations are as close to hell on Earth as you can get.

In Iceland, you can find the ever-burning brimstone of Hekla Fell, a volcano believed by Christians to be the real location of hell.

While in Belize, archaeologists are now piecing together the mysteries of the crystalised skeletons hidden within an eerie portal to the Mayan underworld.

So, would you be brave enough to visit any of these real-life gates to hell?

1. Gehenna 

In his 'Sermon on the Mount' Jesus famously warned that anyone who allows their hand or eye to sin will be cast into 'hell'.

However, biblical experts believe that isn't really what Jesus said.

In the earliest version of the text, the word that Jesus uses is not 'hell' but 'Gehenna'.

Rather than referring to a place of eternal torment, Gehenna is a real location just outside the walls of old Jerusalem.

A contraction of the name Valley of Hinnom, or 'Ge-Hinnom', Gehenna is one of the deep gorges which can be found to the southwest of the old city.

At the time Jesus was alive, many Jews believed that this was a particularly evil place.

According to the Bible, this was the place where ancient Israelites practised child sacrifice, making offerings of their own young to the god Baal.

Jesus' sermon on the mount is often translated as saying that sinners go to 'hell'. However, the word he really used was 'Gehenna' which refers to a real valley to the south of Old Jerusalem (pictured)

For this reason, many believed that the location had been cursed by God and made unfit for worship.

Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote in Time: 'In the ancient world (whether Greek, Roman, or Jewish), the worst punishment a person could experience after death was to be denied a decent burial.

'Jesus developed this view into a repugnant scenario: corpses of those excluded from the kingdom would be unceremoniously tossed into the most desecrated dumping ground on the planet.'

As the bible was translated into other languages, the word Gehenna was gradually swapped for the English word 'hell'.

This means that, according to Christianity, Gehenna is literally hell on Earth.

The Valley of Hinnom might also be the origin of the fires of hell which have filled the popular imagination.

According to some accounts, the Valley of Hinnom was used by the people of Jerusalem as a landfill site where rubbish fires perpetually burned.

Some biblical scholars believe this could have inspired the idea that sinners would be cast into a place of eternal fire.

Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom (pictured), was believed by Jews in Jesus' day to have been a place of human sacrifice. By saying that sinners would be thrown into Gehenna, Jesus may have meant that they would not receive a proper burial. Over time, Gehenna became linked to the Christian idea of Hell and the underworld 

However, while a Roman-era rubbish dump has been found in the North of the city, there is no archaeological evidence that Gehenna was ever really used to burn waste. 

2. Hierapolis

It might not come as a surprise that passing through the gates to the underworld can be hazardous to your health.

But at Hierapolis, in modern-day Turkey, attempting to pass in through this ancient portal really could cost you your life.

The ancient Roman city of Hierapolis was built during the reign of emperor Tiberius between 14 and 37 BC.

In the ruins of this once bustling city, archaeologists have found extensive baths, a gymnasium, an agora or meeting place, and even a Byzantine church.

But Hierapolis is also home to a dark secret - a passage leading directly to the underworld.

Discovered in 2011, the entrance to hell is a small door leading into a cave-like grotto built into one wall of an open arena.

In modern-day Turkey, scientists have found an ancient Roman portal to the underworld with the power to kill anyone who enters (pictured)

According to the ancient philosopher Strabo, the castrated priests of the underworld would carry sacrificial animals down through the door, known as the Plutonium.

To the shock of the spectators lining the surrounding amphitheatre, the animals would die on the spot as if struck down by an invisible assailant while the priests would remain unharmed.

In his account written 2,000 years ago, Strabo says: '[The] space is filled with a cloudy and dark vapour, so dense that the bottom can scarcely be discerned ... Animals which enter ... die instantly.

'Even bulls, when brought within it, fall down and are taken out dead. We have ourselves thrown in sparrows, which immediately fell down lifeless.'

Shockingly, modern scientists have found that Strabo was completely correct about the Plutonium's deadly properties.

Rather than posing a supernatural threat, scientists have found that the door sits on top of an active volcanic fault line.

In addition to warming the springs which drew tourists to the town, this geological activity produced thick clouds of CO2 which would rise up out of the cave.

At night, the CO2 pools thickly in an enveloping cloud of mist which the ancient Romans attributed to the breath of Kerberos, the three-headed guard dog of hell.

The 'Plutonium' in Hierapolis was believed to be an entrance to the underworld. In reality, scientists found that the temple had been built above a geological faultline which produced enough CO2 to kill animals brought near it 

In a study published in 2018, researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen found that CO2 outside the temple entrance reached concentrations of 40-50 per cent.

The authors write: 'Astonishingly, these vapors are still emitted in concentrations that nowadays kill insects, birds, and mammals.

'They reach concentrations during the night that would easily kill even a human being within a minute.'

While the priests were tall enough to keep their heads above the gases, the sacrificial animals were trapped inside the toxic cloud and killed.

Even today, these gases are so toxic that visiting this entrance to hell unprepared really could be a one-way ticket to the afterlife.

3. Hekla 

Even from afar, it is easy to see why Medieval Christians believed that Hekla might be the entrance to hell.

The snow-capped peak of this 1,491-metre volcano towers above Southern Iceland.

Hekla in Iceland was once believed to be the gates of hell through which souls would pass on their way to the underworld 

The Icelandic word 'Hekla' refers to a short, hooded cloak which could reflect the dramatic layer of clouds that gather about its peak.

The mountain's demonic reputation first emerged around the year 1104 when Hekla burst out of dormancy with an enormous eruption.

Based on geological studies, it is believed that the eruption was a category VEI 5 - the same rating as the eruption of Mount St Helen in 1980.

The explosion was so violent that 21,000 square miles (55,000 km squared) - more than half of Iceland - was bombarded by rock and ash.

According to accounts written at the time, people could see the blast of lava, searing ash, and toxic gases from the sea as lava bombs weighing up to 12 tonnes rained down on the country.

The eruption was so violent that news of Hekla's diabolic force soon spread around the ancient world.

In 1180, a Cistercian monk called Herbert de Clairvaux boasted that Helka was even more deady than Mount Etna in Italy.

He wrote: 'The renowned fiery cauldron of Sicily, which men call Hell's chimney ... that cauldron is affirmed to be like a small furnace compared to this enormous inferno.' 

This volcano earned its diabolical reputation thanks to a series of massive eruptions that began in 1104. Hekla produced so much lava and ash that medieval writers believed they had found hell 

As one of Iceland's most active volcanoes, Hekla has continued to earn its sinister status. The volcano most recently erupted in 2000 (pictured) in an explosion which created a 4.3 mile (7km) fissure

By 1120, a poem by the monk Benedeit called the mountain the eternal prison of Judas, referring to the lowest circles of hell.

In the early 14th century, one medieval author described seeing large birds flying into the volcano's fires which were believed to be the souls of the damned entering inferno.

Most famously, the 16th-century German scholar Caspar Peucer wrote that the gates to hell could be found in 'the bottomless abyss of Hekla Fell'.

Although the legends about Hekla's connection to the underworld died off by the 19th century, the volcano has continued to earn its fiendish reputation.

Since its first eruption, Hekla has ignited around 20 times and accounts for 13 per cent of all Icelandic eruptions.

Over the 20th century alone, Hekla has produced 1.2 billion cubic metres of lava and 150 million cubic metres of rocky debris known as tephra.

The mountain has even erupted as recently as the year 2000 when it opened up a 4.3 mile (7km) fissure which sprayed ash and steam 9 miles (15km) into the air.

4. Actun Tunichil Muknal 

In Belize, the cave of Actun Tunichil Muknal, meaning 'Cave of the Stone Sepulcher', is one of the best preserved entrances to the underworld anywhere on the planet. Its 3 miles (5km) long tunnels have been undisturbed for over 1,000 years and contain the grizzly remains of human sacrifices 

While legends about hell vary wildly from culture to culture, one common thread that ties these stories together is that hell is often believed to be deep beneath the Earth.

In Belize, you can find one of the best contenders for an entrance to the subterranean underworld within the caves of Actun Tunichil Muknal, meaning 'Cave of the Stone Sepulcher'.

Actun Tunichil Muknal (the ATM Cave) lay undiscovered and undisturbed for more than 1,000 years after the collapse of the Mayan Empire.

The cave extends more than three miles (five kilometres) beneath the Earth and archaeologists have found artefacts dating back to around 800 AD.

Most shockingly of all, the cave is filled with the grisly remains of the victims of human sacrifice.

When the cave was first discovered in 1989, archaeologists were shocked to find the remains of individuals as young as four years old who had been bludgeoned to death.

The most famous of these remains is so old that the bones have crystalised into glittering calcite, earning it the name 'The Crystal Maiden'.

Researchers now think that the cave was revered as an entrance to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld and the domain of the death gods.

One of the victims has been there so long that their bones have crystalised, earning them the nickname 'The Crystal Maiden'. Experts believe that the Mayans thought the cave was an entrance to Xibalba, the underworld, and made sacrifices there to appease the lords of hell 

Based on the arrangement of the bodies, researchers believe that this was the site of ritual murders designed to reenact the 'Popol Vuh' creation myth.

During the 10th century, the Mayan empire was being blighted by droughts and natural disasters which culminated in the civilisation's rapid collapse.

Their sacrifices were intended to appease the Lords of Xibalba who were thought to be responsible for the droughts.

Professor Holley Moyes, an expert on the caves from the University of California told the BBC: 'Amongst the Maya, we hardly see any – almost no – human sacrifice until the late classic period.

'And I think they start doing it because they are in the middle of a drought, and they are trying to up the ante.'

5. St Patrick's Purgatory  

On a little-known Irish island, you can find a supposed entrance to hell which has had an outsised impact on the Christian understanding of life after death.

St Patrick's Purgatory, located on Station Island in northwestern Ireland, was considered by early medieval people to be the edge of the known world.

Station Island in Ireland is home to St Patrick's Purgatory. In the medieval period, it was believed that the caves on the island could give visitors glimpses of hell 

While St Patrick today might be better associated with shamrocks and green hats, he once had a much more terrifying reputation.

According to a 12th-century text written by a monk named H. of Saltrey, St Patrick prayed to God for a way to convert the Irish pagans.

His efforts were rewarded by a vision of a 'pit of purgatory'.

This chasm filled the mind of anyone who entered with visions of hell fire and monsters, essentially providing a first-hand experience of the consequences of rebuking Christianity.

According to medieval texts, this pit is located on Station Island where a monastery founded by one of St Patrick's disciples still stands today.

Early visitors reported finding a small cave where they would be bombarded with unearthly visions.

The 12-century historian Gerald of Wales of Wales wrote: 'This part of the island contains nine pits, and should any one perchance venture to spend the night in one of them, … he is immediately seized by the malignant spirits.'

The cave was filled in and replaced with a more conventional chapel in the year 1790, but St Patrick's vision of a temporary hell would go on to have a far wider influence.

The caves were filled in in 1790 and replaced with a large chapel. However, the reports of hellish visions went on to form the basis of the Christian understanding of hell and purgatory which persist today 

After reports of the mystical powers of St Patrick's caves were reported, the monastery became one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Europe. 

The idea that sinners might briefly experience suffering before reaching salvation formed one of the essential cornerstones of the idea of purgatory, a sort of waiting room for heaven.

By popularising these ideas, St Patrick's Purgatory became a critical point for the evolution of Christian ideas about what happens after you die.

Just 100 years after the first accounts were written, purgatory was made official church doctrine in 1274.

Even today, pilgrims from around the world undergo notoriously gruelling visits to the island to get a taste of hell first-hand. 

So, while you might no longer be able to take a day trip to the inferno in the cave beneath the island, you can still visit the place where our modern ideas of hell began.

HOW DID ENGLAND BECOME CHRISTIAN?

Britain was a fractious nation in the 7th Century AD, still looking for stability several centuries after the collapse of the Roman empire. 

At this point, various kings ruled over different regions of land and many languages and religions dominated certain locales. 

The exact date of the church is not known, but it is though to be around 633AD, or shortly after, when Ethelburga, a native of Kent, likely returned to her homeland following the death of her husband, Edwin. 

Edwin was the son of Ethelfrith, a Northumbrian king who was known for his warring prowess and repeated skirmished with the Gododdin, a fierce celtic-speaking people from the north-east area of the then-called 'Britannia'. 

King Redwalld of East Anglia dominated the centre of the country, and established the kingdom of Mercia while the Picts dominated modern-day Scotland. 

Augustine (right, on bended knee), and a further 40 Benedictines, landed in Thanet and were met by Ethelbert and Bertha (left). The mission massed its litmus test in 602AD when the English king decided to join his wife's beliefs and opted to be baptised.He then also donated a certain site in Canterbury which would be home to the first, and most important, cathedral in the country. Augustine duly became Canterbury Cathedral's first archbishop

Another king ruled the south-east, with Ethelbert of Kent and his French Christian wife Bertha in command of the region. 

These royals had been visited by a bishop from Rome in 597AD called Augustine after Pope Gregory sent him on a mission to take Christianity to the British isles. 

The Pope's sudden interest in the British isles is believed to stem from a chance encounter with two 'Angli' slaves in an Italian slave market.

Their blonde hair and fair skin captivated the Pope and he immediately said of the inhabitants of England, known as Angels at the time: 'Non Angli sed angeli'. 

Directly translated into English it means 'not Angels but angels of God'.  

His instant infatuation was the kickstarter for the Roman clergy to begin their efforts to bring Evangelicalism to the desolate and divided nation. 

Augustine, and a further 40 Benedictines, landed in Thanet and were met by Ethelbert and Bertha. 

The mission massed its litmus test in 602AD when the English king decided to join his wife's beliefs and opted to be baptised. 

He then also donated a certain site in Canterbury which would be home to the first, and most important, cathedral in the country. 

Augustine duly became Canterbury Cathedral's first archbishop.  

Meanwhile, the feared Ethelfrith from the north died and was succeeded by his son, Edwin, who soon mounted a charge on the rest of Britannia.  

His vast army descended from the north and swept through Mercia and into Kent. 

The mission ended in the conquest of the south-east and Edwin seized Ethelburga, daughter of Ethelbert and Bertha, as his trophy. 

She became his second wife and her devote Christian beliefs went with her to the north.  

A Roman monk was also claimed as part of Edwin's spoils and he performed a baptism on the young King Edwin.

This monk was then assigned the task of founding what is now one of the most iconic christian sites in the UK, York Minster. 

After Edwin abandoned his Pagan beliefs, his reflective approach was not matched by all his contemporaries. 

His high priest was so inflamed by the king's decision he hurled a spear into his own temple and ordered conflagration.  

In 633AD King Cadwallen of Gwynedd and King Penda of Mercia invaded Northumbria and killed Edwin in battle.

He was defeated during the Battle of Hatfield Chase and left Ethelburga widowed.  

The troops of King Cadwallon of Gwynedd raise their spears and rejoice at the death of King Edwin in 633AD. He was defeated during the Battle of Hatfield Chase and left Ethelburga widowed

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13-01-2025 om 23:47 geschreven door peter  

Bermeja: The Island That Vanished off the Coast of Mexico. Was it Destroyed in an Oil War?

In the Gulf of Mexico, a mysterious island known as Bermeja once appeared on maps for centuries, sparking the curiosity of explorers, cartographers, and later, governments. Portrayed as a small, reddish landmass off the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, Bermeja was believed to hold significant geopolitical importance. However, despite its prominent place in maritime charts, modern searches have failed to locate any trace of the island, leading to one of the most intriguing cartographic mysteries of the modern era. The story of Bermeja raises questions about its existence and what might have caused it to vanish.

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Mexico’s Search for the Lost Island of Bermeja

Before its seemingly sudden disappearance, Bermeja could be found on maps dating back to the 16th century. Believed to have been a small, reddish-colored island, its name derives from the Spanish word "bermejo,” which literally means reddish. For centuries, it was consistently portrayed as being in the Gulf of Mexico, around 100 km (62,137 mi) off the Yucatan Peninsula’s northern coast at 22° 33' N latitude and 91° 22' W longitude.

Bermeja appears to have first been recorded by Spanish explorers during the early days of New World exploration. Its name was first put to paper by the renowned 16th-century cartographer Alonso de Santa Cruz in his 1539 work, El Yucatán e Islas Adyacentes. It quickly became a fixture in maritime navigation charts and appeared in important cartographic works. In 1540, Alonso de Chaves recorded its precise location in Espejo de Navegantes, the location given until its bizarre disappearance. 

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Retrato de Alonso de Santa Cruz, por Eulogia Merle 

(Eulogia Merle/CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Bermeja's depiction on these maps lent it an air of authenticity, as it was considered an important reference point in the largely uncharted waters of the Gulf. As the centuries passed, Bermeja maintained its place on maps, becoming a key geographic marker in discussions surrounding maritime boundaries and territorial claims. 

It's supposed location placed it within an area of the Gulf of Mexico that was believed to be rich in oil reserves, adding to its significance. However, despite its long-standing presence in historical cartography, modern efforts to locate Bermeja have been fruitless, leaving the mystery of its existence unresolved.

Bermeja’s True Value

Bermeja’s existence was taken for granted until the late 20th century when efforts to locate the island failed repeatedly. The story of its disappearance began in 1997, when the Mexican government launched an official expedition to survey its waters and confirm Bermeja’s existence to reinforce its maritime borders.

Despite using advanced technology and thorough search methods, the survey found no trace of Bermeja. The search continued, and in 2009 an even more extensive survey was carried out by the National Autonomous University of Mexico for the Mexican Chamber of Deputies. This one also came up empty-handed, which was a problem for the Mexican government.

No one cared about Bermeja itself. If it existed, it was little more than a big red rock in the Gulf of Mexico with nothing on it. What Mexico cared about was the oil that had been found in 1971 in the Hoyos de Doña field. This discovery had led to the founding of Mexico's national oil company, PEMEX, and made it a major player in the global oil game. 

Of course, Mexico's neighbor, the USA, is also a huge fan of oil. Ever since the discovery of oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico, the two countries have been arguing over who holds the rights to the liquid black gold within. If Bermeja existed, it could have extended Mexico's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Gulf of Mexico, helping its argument significantly. 

Mexico needed Bermeja to exist. The USA needed it to not exist. This meant that the failure to locate Bermeja quickly sparked a fair amount of controversy and speculation. Soon, theories emerged suggesting that perhaps certain foreign powers might have played a hand in Bermeja’s seeming disappearance. After all, islands don’t just disappear into thin air, do they?

A 1914 map showing U.S. claim on "Bermejo I." 

(Public Domain)

The Theories

The answer to that question is yes; islands do indeed disappear. They’re called ‘Phantom Islands’, and modern historians and cartographers have recorded a surprising amount of them. If Bermeja is or was a phantom island, there are several mundane explanations for what could have happened to it. 

The most likely theory is that Bermeja simply never existed. The boring truth is that its presence on early maps can simply be put down to a cartographic error. In the age of exploration, maps were often based on limited and sometimes inaccurate information. 

Misinterpretations of navigational data or the desire to fill in uncharted areas might have led to the creation of Bermeja. The island could have been a figment of the cartographers' imagination or a misidentified landmass that was inaccurately recorded and then perpetuated through subsequent maps.

The second most likely option is that Mother Nature had her wicked way with Bermeja. While there’s no evidence to support this theory (at least not yet), rising sea levels or erosion could have destroyed the island. Michael Antochiw Kolpa, a French Mexican cartographer, claimed British maps of the region have listed Bermeja as being 60 fathoms (360 ft; 110 m) below the surface since 1844.

Finally, we come to the least likely theory. Some conspiracy theorists strongly believe that the United States had the CIA destroy the island. Supposedly, this was done to limit Mexico’s territorial claims to the Gulf of Mexico’s most oil-rich areas. This theory raises more questions than it answers.

The CIA has pulled off some pretty audacious missions over the years, many of them shady. But disappearing an entire island without anyone noticing seems like a stretch. Conventional explosives would draw too much attention, while anything else would require sci-fiction-level mining equipment.

Conclusion

So, what happened to Bermeja? Mexico’s own surveys give us the answer. Not only is there no evidence Bermeja exists, but scans of the sea floor show there’s no evidence an island ever existed there. If it had disappeared due to rising sea levels, Bermeja would be simply hiding beneath the surface. If erosion had somehow destroyed an entire island in around 400 years, there would still be some traces.

Likewise, the idea that the United States could make an entire island disappear and leave no trace behind is basically impossible. It would be easier to declare war on Mexico and simply take the oil.

Ultimately, Bermeja appears to be a product of cartographic error, a reminder of the challenges faced by early explorers and mapmakers in charting the unknown, and that sometimes the simplest answer is also the best.

• Top image: Old map showing the Mexican phantom island Bermeja.            
• Source:  Public Domain

By Robbie Mitchell

• Editor. 2009. Mexico claims to Gulf shrink with island's loss. AFP. Available at: 

https://archive.today/20130103055754/http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hGVIh33gGz0S27lrM-Cg9qTpsp2Q

• Dempsey. C. 2022. The Map Myth of Bermeja Island. Geography Realm. Available at: 7

https://www.geographyrealm.com/map-myth-bermeja-island/

• Wilson. S. 2010. Mexico's missing island. Lonely Planet. Available at: 

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/mexicos-missing-island

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends }

12-01-2025 om 23:24 geschreven door peter  

Ten Mythical Creatures in Ancient Folklore from Around the World

Mythical creatures, legendary beasts, and supernatural, mystical, and god-like beings have fascinated us since ancient times. They have filled folklore, stories, songs, and works of art. Sometimes living animals or fossils have inspired these mythical creatures. From the powerful dragon to the soaring phoenix, these mythical creatures continue to thrill, terrify, entertain, and inspire us.

Some mythical creatures, such as the Loch Ness Monster or Sasquatch, continue to be spotted and sought out. While the origins of such fabulous creatures are varied, and often disputed, they have played significant roles in human society, serving to stimulate the imagination and desire that is ingrained in human nature to experience more than this physical world. Whether they truly exist in physical form is indeed secondary to their existence in the minds of so many people throughout the world and history.

A Kraken, a giant mythical creature from Scandinavian folklore, attacking a ship.

(Dieter Holstein / Adobe Stock)

1. The Legendary Kraken

According to Scandinavian mythology, the Kraken is a giant mythical sea creature, said to be 1 mile (1.61 km) long, that attacks ships and is so huge that its body could be mistaken for an island. It is first mentioned in the Örvar-Oddr, a 13th century Icelandic saga involving two sea monsters, the Hafgufa (sea mist) and the Lyngbakr (heather-back).

The Hafgufa is supposed to be a reference to the Kraken. The existence of the Kraken was even acknowledged in scientific texts, including the first edition of Systema Naturae [1735], a taxonomic classification of living organisms by the Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist Carolus Linnaeus. Within this scientific work, Linnaeus classified the Kraken as a cephalopod, designating the scientific name Microcosmus marinus.

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• Mapping the Menacing Sea Monsters in Medieval and Renaissance Cartography

Although any mention of Kraken was omitted in later editions of the Systema Naturae, Linnaeus described the mythical creature in his later work, Fauna Suecica [1746], as a “unique monster” that “is said to inhabit the seas of Norway.” Accounts of the Kraken are believed by many historians to have originated from sightings of the giant squid, which can reach a staggering 59 feet (18 meters) in length.

Vikings carrying the head of Grendel, the beast that attacked the feasting hall in Beowulf.

(Public domain)

2. Grendel, the Beast of Hrothgar

Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem set in Scandinavia and cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature of all time. Dated between the 8th and early 11th century, the epic poem tells the story of Beowulf, a hero who comes to the aid of Hroðgar, the king of the Danes, by defeating a beast known as Grendel who had been terrorizing the great mead hall built by Hroðgar and threatening the entire kingdom.

Archaeological research has verified that the great hall commissioned by Hroðgar did indeed exist, and was located in the country’s earliest royal capital, Lejre, 23 miles (37.01 km) west of modern Copenhagen. Whether Grendel (meaning quite literally “the destroyer”) originally existed in some less legendary form – perhaps symbolizing a malevolent spirit responsible for disease and death, or a particularly fierce-looking human enemy – is as yet unknown.

A Kappa water demon as shown in the “Bakemono no e” (meaning “Illustrations of Supernatural Creatures”), a Japanese handscroll depicting mythical creatures from circa 1700.

(Brigham Young University / CC BY-SA 4.0)

3. Kappa, the Japanese Mythical Creature Devouring Disobedient Children

In ancient Japanese folklore, the Kappa is a water demon that inhabits rivers and lakes and devours disobedient little children. The Kappa, a word meaning “river child,” is usually depicted with the body of a tortoise, a beak, and the limbs of a frog, and has a hole filled with water on top of his head. While they are primarily water creatures, they are believed to occasionally venture onto land.

According to legend, the head cavity must be kept wet when the Kappa ventures out of the water, or he will lose his powers. The Kappa is one of the most well-known folk legends in Japan and many believe the mythical creature to be real.

In fact, there are signs near some lakes in Japan warning people of their presence. However, others maintain it is much more likely that the legend of the Kappa is connected with sightings of the Japanese Giant Salamander, or hanzaki, which is known to be aggressive and to grab its prey with its powerful jaws.

The legendary Nian, one of the mythical creatures of Chinese folklore.

(Author supplied)

4. The Legend of Nian

According to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called Nian, which had the body of a bull and the head of a lion. It was said to be a ferocious animal that lived in the mountains and hunted for a living. Towards the end of winter when there was nothing to eat, Nian would come on the first day of New Year to the villages to eat livestock, crops, and even villagers - especially children.

To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nian ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. The villagers would live in terror over the winter, but over time they learned that the ferocious Nian was afraid of three things: the color red, fire, and noise. So, when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. They also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian.

From then on, Nian never came to the villages again. According to legend, the mythical creature was eventually captured by Hongjun Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk, and Nian became Hongjun Laozu's mount. After Nian was captured, there were huge celebrations and the ritual involved in banishing him was repeated the following year. These symbolic rituals were passed down from generation to generation and the custom of celebrating the New Year with firecrackers, noise, and the color red has persisted to this day.

A Naga statue at the Wat Phra Kaew temple in Thailand.

(tuayai / Adobe Stock)

5. Naga, the Water Deity

The Naga is a legendary aquatic, serpentine creature that resides in oceans, rivers, lakes, or waterfalls. Nagas are said to have black scales and can grow to hundreds of feet in length. Nagas are traditionally worshipped as personifications of water deities and considered bringers of rain and clouds.

Nagas are guardians of temples and holy places. Most Kaliyatran believe that the superior God directs the actions of the Nagas, and these sea serpents are honored with many titles such as the Maharaja Sarpa and the “Naga who is God.” It is commonly believed that Nagas live in underground cities, are capable of speech, and can use their heavenly powers to control weather and assume humanoid form at will.

The female Piasa bird, is one of the mythical creatures of Native American mythology.

(FoolishLittleMortal)

6. The Native American Tradition of the Piasa

The legend of the Piasa bird dates back to long before European explorers came to North America. It has been traced to a band of Illiniwek Indians who lived along the Mississippi in the vicinity north of present-day Alton. This tribe, led by a chief named Owatoga, hunted and fished the valley and the river and lived a contented life until the so-called “great beast” came.

The mythical creature Piasa bird was described by French missionary priest Jacques Marquette in 1673 as follows: “it is as large as a calf, with horns like a roebuck, red eyes, a beard like a tiger and a frightful countenance. The face was something like that of a man, the body covered in scales, and the tail so long that it passed entirely around the body, over the head and between the legs, ending like a fish.”

As with the Illini tribes, there can be found traditions of similar large birds and dragons throughout the world. The Dakota tribe believed that thunder was a monstrous bird flying through the air and claimed that these birds were large enough to carry off human beings.

In the ancient Buddhist caves of India there can be found a number of carved and painted dragons that easily fit with the descriptions of Piasa. Some have questioned whether these mythical creatures could have been an ancient species of bird that actually existed. That so many cultures and groups of people separated by thousands of miles and years have similar tales of immense flying creatures is curious to say the least.

A modern depiction of the Menehune dwarves of Hawaiian mythology.

(butterfrog)

7. The Menehune of Hawaiian Mythology

In Hawaiian mythology, the Menehune are said to be an ancient race of small-stature people who lived in Hawaii before settlers arrived from Polynesia. Many scholars attribute ancient structures found on the Hawaiian Islands to the Menehune. However, others have argued that the legends of the Menehune are a post-European contact mythology and that no such race existed.

The mythology of the Menehune is as old as the beginnings of Polynesian history. When the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaii, they found dams, fish-ponds, roads, and even temples - all said to have been built by the Menehune who were superb craftspeople. Some of these structures still exist and the highly-skilled craftsmanship is evident.

According to legend, each of these mythical creatures was a master of a certain craft and had one special function they accomplished with great precision and expertise. They would set out at dusk to build something in one night, and if this was not achieved, it would be abandoned. To date, no human skeletal remains of a physically small race of people have ever been found on Kaua’I or on any other Hawaiian Islands.

While this does not disprove that a race of small people existed, it does draw the truth behind the legend into question. Nevertheless, there is compelling evidence, both archaeological and in the numerous legends passed down over generations, that suggests that there was indeed an ancient race of highly-skilled people who inhabited the Hawaiian islands long before the Polynesians arrived.

Cipactli is one of the mythical creatures from Aztec legends.

(Public domain)

8. Cipactli, the Aztec Creator with an Insatiable Appetite

The Aztecs of Mexico held the belief that the Earth was created from the destruction of a large sea demon, created by and known to the gods as Cipactli. Cipactli was described in many fashions: a crocodile with toad and fish characteristics, a sea demon, or a monster. Regardless of the description, the Aztecs considered this asexual sea being as the source of the cosmos.

Cipactli’s appetite was insatiable and each joint of the mythical creature bore a mouth. As the gods began the process of creation, they soon realized that their other creations would fall into the void and be devoured by the demon, so they decided to destroy Cipactli. Tezcatlipoca lured the monster in and lost a foot to its insatiable appetite before the gods were able to defeat it.

• 7 Legendary Cryptids that Turned Out to Be Real!
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Cipactli put up a fight, but in the end the gods prevailed. They pulled Cipactli’s body in four directions and freed the universe from it. Then Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl created the heavens and the Earth and everything therein from Cipactli’s body. The creature’s head became the thirteen heavens, its tail the underworld, and its midsection the Earth.

Griffins are ancient mythical creatures with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.

(Declan Hillman / Adobe Stock)

9. The Majestic Griffin

The griffin is a legendary mythical creature with the head and wings of an eagle, and the body, tail, and hind legs of a lion. As the eagle was considered the king of the birds, and the lion the ‘king of the beasts’, the griffin was perceived as a powerful and majestic creature.

During the Persian Empire, the griffin was seen as a protector from evil, witchcraft, and slander. While griffins are most common in the art and mythology of ancient Greece, there is evidence of representations of griffins in ancient Persia and ancient Egypt dating back to as early as the 4th millennium BC. On the island of Crete in Greece, archaeologists have uncovered depictions of griffins in frescoes in the Throne Room of the Bronze Age Palace of Knossos dating back to the 15th century BC.

The four mythical creatures of China; the Azure Dragon of the East, the White Tiger of the West, the Black Tortoise of the North, and the Vermillion Bird of the South.

(Author provided)

10. The Four Mythical Creatures of China

In ancient Chinese astronomy, the sky ecliptic was divided into four sections. Each of these sections contained seven mansions, and together they formed the 28 Mansions. The 28 Mansions may be considered to be equivalent to the zodiacal constellations in Western astronomy, although they reflect the movement of the Moon through a sidereal month rather than the Sun in a tropical year.

This enabled the ancient Chinese to mark the traveling positions of the Sun and the Moon, as well as to determine the time and seasons. Each section of the sky is assigned to a mythical creature, collectively known as the Four Symbols. These mythical creatures are the Azure Dragon of the East, the White Tiger of the West, the Black Tortoise of the North, and the Vermillion Bird of the South. Apart from their astronomical significance, each of the Four Symbols is surrounded by various mythological associations.          

• Top image: Mythical creatures from around the world include the legendary Griffin shown here.
• Source: ShiaoHuai / Adobe Stock

By Joanna Gillan

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends }

10-01-2025 om 22:25 geschreven door peter  

Scientists reveal all the evidence Adam and Eve really DID exist

• READ MORE: Five archaeological finds which suggest Bible stories are true 

By WILIAM HUNTER

It's a story that almost any Christian would be instantly familiar with.

According to the Bible, Adam and Eve were the first man and woman on Earth.

Said to be made out of dust and to have lived in the Garden of Eden, the two figures are central to the belief that everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. 

While this might seem far-fetched, there is now a growing body of evidence which suggests that at least some parts of the story could be true.

Archaeologists have found surprising signs that Eden was not only a real place but could have been the birthplace of civilisation as we know it.

Likewise, biologists have shown that all humans alive today really do share a single common ancestor.

However, making the Bible fit with modern science requires throwing out a lot of the traditional story.

That could mean saying goodbye to the notion that God created Adam and Eve, or even questioning whether our biblical ancestors were Homo Sapiens.

While it might seem far-fetched, scientists now say there could be some elements of truth to the story of Adam and Eve. Pictured: Adam and Eve as painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1528

A real Garden of Eden 

In the Bible, Adam and Eve live in a place called the Garden of Eden, a beautiful land of plenty and abundance.

Interestingly, the Bible also provides a relatively precise description of where this mystical garden is located.

In Genesis, the Bible states that a river flows through Eden and divides into four branches: The Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates.

Of these, the Tigris and the Euphrates are well known and still flow through modern-day Iraq.

However, the Gihon and the Pishon are far more obscure and their locations, if they still exist, are unknown.

This has led to a plethora of suggestions as to where the Garden of Eden might have really been, ranging from Iran and Mongolia to Jackson County Missouri.

However, the most promising theory is that the Garden of Eden is located in an area called Mesopotamia.

In the Bible, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden which is described as being between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. This would make the region of Mesopotamia a likely contender for its location 

The Garden of Eden is referred to as being East of Israel where Jesus lived. This suggests that the Garden of Eden could have been located somewhere around modern-day Iraq 

Literally meaning 'between rivers' in Ancient Greek, this region sits between the Tigris and Euphrates and straddles what is now eastern Syria, northwestern Turkey, and most of Iraq.

Professor Eric Cline, a classical and biblical archaeologist from George Washington University, argues that this theory matches the scriptural and archaeological evidence.

Writing in his book 'From Eden to Exile', Professor Cline says: 'This makes some sense from a textual point of view, because not only does the biblical account say that the garden lay "in the east", meaning to the east of Israel, but it also mentions the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in connection with the Garden of Eden.'

Additionally, this region is widely believed to be the place where the first plants and animals were domesticated between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago in the so-called Neolithic revolution.

Dubbed the 'Fertile Crescent', the nutrient-rich sediments of the two rivers allowed for the first grains to be deliberately planted and harvested by humans.

This development led to the earliest transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural lifestyles and precipitated the birth of the first permanent human settlements.

Professor Cline adds: 'This area may have also become somewhat of an agricultural paradise for the local residents following the invention of irrigation during the fourth millennium BC.'

Further strengthening this case, there are some striking parallels between the biblical account of creation and the most ancient myths from the region.

Iraq sits in the fertile crescent, an area of land which was home to the first human civilisations including the Sumerians who built great palaces like the one at Girsu (pictured) at least 4,500 years ago 

The ancient Sumerians also shared myths which bear a strong resemblance to the Christian creation myths. Archaeologists even discovered a seal (pictured) which appears to show a man and woman sitting by a tree in a garden. Some experts think the story of Eden could have been passed down from these first civilisations to the Israelites by the second century BC 

Most notably the ancient Sumerians, considered to be the first human civilisation, recorded a myth called Enuma Elish, meaning 'When on High'.

This story records the creation of heaven and Earth from a primal, chaotic body of water in a very similar fashion to that described in Genesis. 

According to some archaeologists, the best way to explain this similarity is that the Sumerian myth was handed down through the years all the way to the Israelites in the second century BC.

If that is true, then it is plausible that the biblical story of Adam and Eve captures an ancient story about the origin of civilisation which took place somewhere around modern-day Iran.

A genetic Adam and Eve 

It might come as a surprise to learn that scientists really do believe that all living humans are descended from a single woman.

The so-called 'Mitochondrial Eve' is the common female ancestor to which the DNA of all modern human beings can be traced.

This common ancestor exists because, no matter how big your initial population is, the chances are that most female lineages will eventually come to an end.

Since most genetic lineages will come to an end over time, if you go back far enough there will be a single individual whose DNA is shared by every living person. Scientists call these individuals the Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam based on the type of genetic information passed on by mothers and fathers (stock image)

While Mitochondrial Eve was not the first human, every other female lineage eventually died off and failed to pass on their mitochondrial DNA - a type of genetic material passed from mothers to their children.

Likewise, by applying the same logic scientists have determined that there must also be a 'Y-chromosome Adam' from which the male Y-chromosome in every living human originates.

Since DNA gathers mutations at a steady rate, scientists can use this 'genetic clock' to figure out how long ago everyone had the same DNA.

In 1987, geneticists looked at the mitochondrial DNA of 147 people from around the world.

By comparing the differences in their DNA, the researchers could work out how many mutations must have occurred since their most recent common ancestor.

Dividing that number by the rate of mutation shows that Mitochondrial Eve probably lived in Africa around 200,000 years ago.

Likewise, a study conducted in 2013 with 1,200 men from Sardinia also showed that Y-chromosome Adam would have lived around 180,000–200,000 years ago.

Of course, no scientists actually believe that humans descended from a single pair of humans.

This Adam and Eve would have been just one of the many humans living on Earth at the time. 

Our two most recent common ancestors likely lived hundreds if not thousands of years apart and almost certainly never met - let alone had children together.

Their unique status as humanity's common ancestors is merely a product of statistics rather than any divine intervention.

A genealogical story

However, some scientists believe that there is a way of making science fit with a biblical account of Adam and Eve.

Dr Joshua Swamidass, a biologist from Washington University, has argued that there is no reason to believe that humanity does not descend from a single couple.

As the case of the Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam shows, there is no scientific barrier to humans having a common ancestor even if the population never reduced to a single couple. 

In an article, published in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Dr Swamidass writes: 'Many individuals are each individually ancestors of “all the living”.

Scientists argue that there is nothing about the theory of human evolution which prevents a pair of ancient humans from being the common ancestors of all living humans. However, Homo Sapiens are not the only human species and are known to have interbred with Neanderthals (pictured) which makes this theory more complicated 

'All humans alive descend from each of these universal ancestors. The same can be said for all alive in AD 1, or all alive when recorded history begins.

'Two of them could be a particular couple, named Adam and Eve in scripture, from whom we all descend.'

It is important to note that Dr Swamidass is not offering a positive case for the existence of Adam and Eve.

Rather, he is merely showing that there is nothing in our understanding of evolutionary biology that prohibits the existence of an Adam and Eve couple. 

Yet, as Dr Swamidass notes, there is still the problem that Homo Sapiens were not the first humans on Earth.

Based on the idea that Adam and Eve should be the literal ancestors of every human who has ever lived, some scholars have looked even further into the past.

Professor William Lane Craig, a philosopher from Houston Christian University, argues that Adam and Eve must have been the first people to truly be human.

Using criteria including the capacity for abstract thought, depth of planning, technological innovation, and the use of symbols, he argues that the first true humans emerged much earlier than homo sapiens. 

Professor William Lane Craig, a philosopher from Houston Christian University, claims that Adam must have been a member of the first human species if he is to be the common ancestor for all humans. He therefore concludes that Adam was a member of the species Homo heidelbergensis (pictured) and lived between 750,000 and one million years ago

In an article published in First Things, Professor Craig writes: 'Adam and Eve may plausibly be identified as belonging to the last common ancestor of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, usually denominated Homo heidelbergensis.

'Adam plausibly lived sometime between around 1 million years ago to 750,000 years ago, a conclusion consistent with the evidence of population genetics.'

Although there is nothing impossible about this claim, it doesn't put forward much positive evidence.

Even if Homo Heidelbergensis is the first human and humans could have descended from a single pair, there is still no reason to believe that this pair were the only humans on Earth.

Additionally, if Adam were a Homo Heidelbergensis then he wouldn't have lived in the proposed location for the Garden of Eden in Iraq.

Likewise, admitting that Adam and Eve weren't even Homo Sapiens is likely to rattle a few more conservative Christian thinkers.

Additionally, some scientists have criticised the idea that 'humanness' is a binary characteristic with a simple starting point.

However, it is still a striking fact that there is nothing in our current theories of human evolution that strictly prohibits the existence of an original Adam and Eve couple in at least some sense.

WHEN DID CHRISTIANITY COME TO BRITAIN?

In the first century after Christ, Britain had its own gods: Pagan gods of the Earth, and Roman gods of the sky. But soon after, Christianity came to the British Isles. 

While people tend to associate the arrival of Christianity in Britain with the mission of St Augustine, who was dispatched to England by the Pope to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxon kings, in 597AD, Christianity arrived long before then in the 1st century AD. 

It started when Roman artisans and traders who arrived in Britain began spreading the story of Jesus along with stories of their Pagan gods. 

Marble head representing Emperor Constantine the Great, at the Capitoline Museums 

At the time, Christianity was one cult among many, but unlike roman cults, Christianity required exclusive fidelity from its followers. 

This led to Roman authorities persecuting Christian, who were then forced to meet and worship in secret. 

But Roman Emperor Constantine saw appeal in a single religion with a single God, and he saw that Christianity could be used to unite his Empire.

From 313 AD onwards, Christian worship was permitted within the Roman Empire. 

During the 4th Century, British Christianity became more visible but it had not yet become widespread. Pagan beliefs were still common and Christianity was a minority faith.

It looked as if Paganism might pervade over Christianity when, after the departure of the Romans, new invaders arrived: Angles, Saxons and Jutes. 

Yet Christianity survived on the Western edges of Britain. Missionary activity continued in Wales and Ireland, and in Western Scotland Saint Columba helped to bring a distinctly Irish brand of Christianity to mainland Britain.

It can also be argued that it was St Augustine's famous mission in 597 AD from the Pope in Rome to King Aethelbert of Kent that definitively set up the future of Christianity in Britain, creating an alliance between Christianity and royals.  

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06-01-2025 om 20:20 geschreven door peter  

One of the most enduring myths of humankind is that pertaining to giants. In almost every major civilization and culture in the world, there are tales of ancient giants, enormous and powerful, credited with the construction of many great sites. But for the most part, the myths about giants remain only that - myths. For generations, scholars and historians tried to bring these myths to reality, to find some evidence that giants really existed. Their efforts are shrouded in enigma. There are stories of giant skeletons being excavated, and many oral legends that point to their existence. But they all somehow, “mysteriously” disappear, or are placed “under the rug”. So what is the truth? Did the giants really live in ancient history?

• Nibelungs – Germanic Race Of Elves Or Giants?
• The Relic of Bir Hooker - Proof of a Race of Giants? - Part 1

The Quest for Giants

Across millennia, the notion of these colossal beings of immense power and stature had fascinated societies. Many people from all corners of the globe had folklore and myths centered on these beings, and even religious texts mentioned them to a great extent. So much so that scholarly inquiry was needed: were these legends simple allegories, or were they based on actual facts from some ancient time in history? To answer this question, scholars had to navigate through heaps of ancient texts, through myths and cultural lore, and plenty of archeological finds that all point out towards the existence of giants.

Perhaps the best place to start the quest was by examining ancient texts and religious accounts. Many of them specifically mention giants as being an actual part of our shared history. One of the best known such mentions come from the Hebrew Bible, which mentions beings known as the Nephilim. A passage from the Bible’s “Book of Genesis”, mentions them as follows:

“There were giants (Nephilim) in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”

-Genesis, 6:4

This verse, combined with other references such as those in the Book of Enoch - an apocryphal Jewish text - suggests that beings of considerable size and power once walked the earth. This book takes things even further, describing them as the offspring of certain angels who descended to earth and mated with human women. The resulting offspring were beings of giant stature and great strength, whose mere existence led to corruption and violence across the world. This state ultimately prompted the biblical divine flood - a way to cleanse the earth and start anew.

• The Relic of Bir Hooker & The Giants of the Past - Part 2
• Giants In Canaan: Anakim, Rephaim And Nephilim

Norandino and Lucina Discovered by the Ogre’ (1624) by Giovanni Lanfranco. Galleria Borghese 

(Public Domain)

The Oldest Legends of the Oldest Civilizations

This would sound like a mere legend, if it didn’t closely align with a myth from an altogether different civilization. This civilization was Mesopotamia, which left to posterity the “Epic of Gilgamesh”, one of the world’s oldest surviving literary works. Gilgamesh himself is described as a giant of extraordinary power, possibly hinting at a long-lost connection to a race of oversized beings. Similarly, the Mahabharata and other Hindu scriptures mention beings of gigantic proportions, known as , who played significant roles in cosmic battles. These giants were said to have superhuman strength and were often depicted as guardians of powerful secrets or treasures.

Statue of Ravana from the 18th century AD, British Museum

(Claire H./CC BY-SA 2.0)

However, it is very important to note that the theme of giants is not confined to a single culture; it is a global motif. For example, in the famed Greek mythology, there existed Titans. These were primordial giants who ruled the Earth before the arrival of the “normal” gods of the Olympus. Due to their sheer size and great strength, they were difficult enemies to overthrow. Nevertheless, the gods eventually defeated them, ending their existence in a climactic battle known as Titanomachy. A very similar story exists in Old Norse mythology, which speaks of the  Jötnar, a race of giants who dwelled in Jotunheim. Much like the Titans, they too were embroiled in a bitter conflict with the human Gods of the Asgard. But not all of them were evil, the myths say, and many formed alliances and even married with the Gods.

Scene from Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold , illustrated by Arthur Rackham (1910). The giants Fasolt and Fafner abduct Freia after Wotan fails to pay them for building Valhalla.

(Public Domain) 

Amongst the Celtic peoples there are stories of the Fomorians, an ancient race of giants which were the infamous enemies of Ireland’s very first settlers. In the extensive Irish myths, these giants were eventually defeated by the Tuatha de Danann, a more advanced race of beings - the Gods of the pre-Christian Irish. The existence of megalithic structures such as Newgrange and Stonehenge has fueled speculation about whether such giant beings could have had a hand in their construction.

The Fomorians.

(Public Domain)

And far from the lands of the Norse or the Celts, amongst the Native American Indians, there also existed tales of giants. The Paiute Native American tribe has an extensive oral history that speaks of the Si-Te-Cah. These were a race of red-haired giants that inhabited an area that is today the state of Nevada. Settling in the area, the very first natives warred with these giants, who were cannibals. The giants eventually met their bitter end in this war. Their numbers constantly dwindled, and they finally disappeared when the Paiute trapped the last of them in a cave and set it ablaze, suffocating them. This tale gained further intrigue with the discovery of Lovelock Cave in the early 20th century, where gigantic skeletal remains were purportedly found, leading some to believe that the legend was actually based in truth. However, the remains mysteriously “disappeared” under the care of the Smithsonian Museum.

The Giant Hidden History

Archaeological findings often become a point of heated debate when giants are discussed. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, there were numerous reports of giant skeletal remains unearthed in various parts of the world. For instance, in the United States, newspapers such as the New York Times published articles claiming that giant skeletons were found during digs in places like Wisconsin, Ohio, and the Appalachian region. Some reports mentioned skeletons ranging from 7 to 12 feet tall (2.1 to 3.6 m tall), complete with robust bone structures that appeared to support a human form of that magnitude. In fact, there were hundreds of such finds in America, many documented with photographs. However, virtually all of them were discredited, and many allegedly destroyed by the Smithsonian Museum, where many ended up. Why? No one really knows.

The Smithsonian, in fact, has been at the center of what were termed “conspiracy theories” that claim it actively suppressed findings related to giants to align with prevailing views of human history. However, the institution has repeatedly denied these claims, maintaining that no verified remains of giant humanoids have ever been recovered. And thus, ultimately, skepticism prevailed in academic circles. Modern archeologists usually attribute these claims to simple mistakes: misidentified animal bones and ancient fossils, hoaxes, and simple exaggerations.

One of the more important archeological finds often brought into discussion about giants was found in the ancient city of Baalbek, situated in modern-day Lebanon. Discovered were some of the largest stone blocks that were ever used in construction, with the heaviest (known as the “Stone of the Pregnant Woman”) weighing well over 1,000 tons. Modern historians attribute these megaliths to the craftsmanship and advanced abilities of the Roman Empire, but there are those that argue that they are the evidence of an ancient race of giants. In fact, they state that only giants could carve, move, and arrange such stones - ultimately creating many megalithic structures across Europe.

Stone of the Pregnant Woman pictured with Ralph Ellis standing on it, at Baalbek, Lebanon

(Ralph Ellis/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Giants, or Giant Mistakes?

There are those scholars who argue that the ancient stories of giant beings were simply metaphors and exaggerations, and not actual descriptions of them. They state that ancient peoples, not familiar with very old megalithic structures, or having lost certain technologies, simply ascribed them to mythical giants. And in ancient myths, these same giants were used to symbolize chaos, primal forces, or the boundary between order and disorder. As such, their defeat at the hands of human gods or heroes usually represents the triumph of civilization over nature or barbarism, and the very old ways of existence.

Anthropologists also have a say in this, claiming that ancient stories of giants could be connected to large fossils. When ancient peoples would uncover, for example, bones of mammoths or prehistoric creatures, they would liken them to bones of humans - only much larger. Not realizing otherwise, they would envision a race of giant men. This hypothesis is supported by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who mentioned in his “Histories” that the Egyptians pointed to large bones as proof of a race of giants.

Additionally, psychological interpretations consider the stories of giants as expressions of human fears and desires. The idea of a larger-than-life being embodies power, intimidation, and the unknown. These attributes may have been incorporated into oral traditions as cautionary tales or as explanations for natural phenomena that were difficult for ancient people to comprehend. A good example is the mythology of the Aztecs. They mention Quinametzin, the Giants that dwelt in the world before them. According to the Aztecs, it was giants who created their foremost city, Teotihuacan (transl. “The Place Where Men Become Gods”). But since the giants did not venerate the gods, they were all ultimately defeated.

Aztec Giant Quinametzin

(Giggette/CC0)

Too Many Similarities?

Secrets, myths, and inexplicable things - these are all that surround the notion of giants in ancient history. Whether or not giants really roamed the Earth is a question that remains unanswered to this very day. Ancient texts, cultural stories, and speculative archaeology suggest a rich tradition that spans continents and centuries. Yet, conclusive physical evidence is lacking, leaving room for both skepticism and belief. And on top of it all, there are those that seemingly put all their efforts to repeatedly shove this story under the rug, and to portray all those who believe in it as conspiracy theorists.

But nevertheless, the tales of the giants - be they metaphorical or literal - remain the foremost symbols of the mysteries that surround most ancient human history. And they also highlight the power of the stories that are passed down through generations. Whether these tales are born from an overactive imagination, allegorical storytelling, or faint recollections of a forgotten chapter in human history, they continue to captivate and provoke thought either way. In the end, however, they are urging us to always explore the dark unknown. Because in that darkness could hide the answers for which humanity is not yet ready.

• Top image: A huge great statue of the greek god titan atlas holding planet earth in his hands. dark sky in the background.
• Source: MVProductions/Adobe Stock

By Aleksa Vučković

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{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins }

05-01-2025 om 20:52 geschreven door peter  

This Boy Claims He Lived in an Atlantis Colony in Egypt 12,000 Years Ago, Founded by Beings from Other Worlds

Born on November 12, 1987, in Venado Tuerto, Argentina, De Stefano started his journey of self-discovery at a young age. Since he was three, he has had vivid memories of past lives and deep knowledge of the universe. From ages 12 to 18, he could see Etheric Beings, which led to intense visions, memories of past lives in ancient cultures, and painful headaches. To understand what was happening to him, he began searching for answers through the Akashic Records and his surroundings.

Matias began communicating with his spirit guides at a young age when he began remembering past lives, including one in an ancient Atlantean colony called Kehm and another on a distant planet named Gludok in the Canis Major star system.

He believes these memories help him understand his current mission: to bring heaven to earth, a concept known as Ater Tumti in Atlantean. Matias has inspired thousands of people to join his efforts to heal our planet.

He has traveled to more than 40 countries, visiting key locations to “unlock” energy portals and activate the Earth’s chakras. According to Matias, these portals increase energy flow for everything on the planet—not just humans, but all living beings.

Matias’ mission isn’t new. He says it began over 12,000 years ago during the Age of Leo. Today, he is deeply committed to this spiritual path and shares his message with anyone ready to listen, though his journey hasn’t always been smooth.

At 23, while giving a talk in Spain, he suddenly forgot everything he was saying. He realized this was his guides’ way of clearing his mind for new messages. Shortly after, they told him that on November 11, 2011 (11/11/11), he needed to prepare a gathering to shift the energy in a specific place. This pushed him into a challenging inner and outer journey, bringing him to the next step of his mission—one that almost cost him his life.

• Disclaimer: This story is based on Matias De Stefano’s experiences and beliefs. It reflects his personal spiritual journey and metaphysical perspectives.

Matias says the story of Atlantis is deeply rooted in humanity’s collective subconscious because it represents the beginning of our current civilization. He claims to remember his life in an Atlantean colony, where he learned about Atlantis through stories told by his grandfather in that life.

According to Matias, the Atlantean people were a mix of beings from the stars and Earth, often referred to as the Anunnaki, giants who settled in the Middle East.

The ‘Anunnaki’ created a civilization by having children with humans—partly to help their species transcend since their planet was dying. Some Anunnaki treated humans as equals, while others used them as slaves to extract minerals needed for survival.

Matias recounts that the Greek god Poseidon, whom he knew as Stalin in his memory, was an Anunnaki who protected 12 children of mixed lineage. Poseidon led them away from the controlling Anunnaki in the Middle East, settling them near the Atlantic Ocean, where they founded Atlantis’ 12 families.

He adds that Atlantis was divided into 12 regions, each managed by these families, who were not rulers but guides. They held knowledge from the stars and passed it down, encoded in their bloodline, to maintain cosmic wisdom and spiritual balance. The Atlantean culture, as Matias remembers, focused on humanity looking beyond Earth and toward the stars.

Matias also suggests that the Anunnaki and other star beings were part of a larger universal experiment. Even they didn’t fully understand their role in humanity’s creation. Atlantis, according to him, played a crucial role in setting the foundation for human awakening and consciousness, and he invites exploration into the connections between these cosmic ancestors, Atlantis, and the origins of human civilization.

According to Matias, the creation of races was part of a larger evolutionary process driven by cosmic forces. He describes the sixth dimension as crucial because it forms the foundation of all life in the universe, represented by the “Flower of Life” pattern of six spheres. This geometric structure is fundamental to the design of living beings and reflects how water crystallizes in six-sided forms.

In the sixth dimension, time and space interact, splitting into six patterns of time and six parts of space, creating 12 fundamental forces or beings, referred to as the “Elohim.” These Elohim are the architects of the universe and oversee the creation of life across different dimensions, including the third, fourth, and fifth. While often visualized as angelic or human-like figures, Matias describes the Elohim as massive spherical entities that divide and multiply, similar to cells in a mother’s womb, to initiate life and creation.

Matias views the Elohim as the primordial forces or “seeds of life” that help shape the universe and its evolutionary journey.

Matias explains that the Elohim, which began as enormous spherical beings, split into thousands of cells, each becoming the source of life for various entities. Every one of us originates from one of these Elohim. Over time, these Elohim separated into different frequencies and vibrations, which became distinct “races” or rays of light in the universe. These rays, seen as colors filling the cosmos, led to the concept of Archangels—another name for Elohim in different vibrational forms.

Matias likens this process to the ancient Greek idea of Chronos, the god of time, whose offspring emerged from divisions of his own body. Similarly, the Elohim created life, species, and realities in the third dimension from their own essence. The purpose of this creation was for the universe to explore itself through evolution and experience different aspects of its own existence.

Initially, the Elohim existed as vibrations and waves through time but eventually took on geometric forms, giving rise to living beings in the spatial reality of the universe. These creations weren’t immediate but the result of billions of years of evolution, with humanity as a final product.

The first beings the Elohim created were not species as we think of them but entities designed to govern the four fundamental elements of the universe: water, earth (minerals), fire, and air (gas). These elements serve as the building blocks for all life and realities in the third dimension.

Matias explains that the first forms of life in the universe were shaped by the four elements: gas, fire, minerals, and water. Different planets created life from these elements. For example, life forms could emerge from gas or fire, while Earth-based life came from minerals and water. Of these, bacteria were the most crucial for building the foundation of all other species.

The “fifth body,” the ethereal body, connects everything. It holds the memory and consciousness of all beings, linking them to the soul’s energy, which flows through all species. Early species made of fire and gas developed distinct shapes and consciousness. These beings lived on suns and gas planets, like Jupiter and Saturn, but are so fundamentally different from humans that communication would only be possible if we were “Elementals,” beings tied to the same elemental forces.

As mineral and water-based life evolved, the ethereal energies combined with water to create the first conscious beings in this context. These beings include highly advanced species like the Pleiadians. They are connected to the universe’s creation of water and existed in dimensions that allowed them to integrate fire and water energy. When water appeared on Earth around 4.6 billion years ago, it was due to a massive collision between the early Earth and a moon-like object. This impact created the Pacific Ocean and introduced rocks carrying hydrogen, which, under the right conditions, formed Earth’s water.

Matias mentions that this process was guided not by a higher organization, like a “Confederation,” but by the forces of the sixth dimension. He emphasizes that destruction and chaos in the universe were necessary for creating new realities, including the seeds of life on Earth.

Matias explains how the patterns of the sixth dimension were connected to the third dimension (space) through the fourth dimension (time). The process required beings to first exist in the fourth dimension, which allowed them to develop self-awareness and experience life through four stages: expression, experimentation, integration, and transcendence.

A key challenge arose because the beings created in the fourth dimension lived eternally in the same form, with the same personality and knowledge. This unchanging existence hindered their ability to grow and explore new ways of understanding the universe. To solve this, death was introduced. Death allowed these beings to end a cycle of existence and start anew, enabling evolution and greater adaptability.

his new system tied expression to being born, experimentation to procreation, integration to aging, and transcendence to death. By dying, beings in the fourth dimension could create life in the third dimension, using death as a tool to end one perspective and begin another. This shift made learning and adaptation more dynamic and allowed for greater diversity in experiences.

Matias highlights that this evolutionary process deeply connects us to water. Water species discovered that by changing their shapes while maintaining their core essence, they could better adapt and exchange information with the universe. This ability to transform ensured their survival and growth. Humanity, as part of this evolutionary lineage, reflects this principle—while we evolve and change outwardly, our core remains constant. In essence, we are like water: ever-changing in form but eternal in nature.

Matias explains that water holds the key to creating and shaping life because it can carry and store information. However, for water to express this information in diverse forms, it needs minerals to give it structure. Throughout the galaxy’s history, minerals conditioned water to capture and hold information from various parts of the universe and the planet. Beings from other dimensions or planets also used minerals to shape water into structures that could hold and transmit their knowledge through time and space.

The DNA spiral, created by the universe, serves as a vessel to store this information within cells, akin to how planets hold life. Matias says intelligent species, including humans, are often seen as being created by extraterrestrial beings, which is true—but not in the simplistic sense of aliens arriving and crafting new life forms from scratch. Instead, these beings spent millions of years studying Earth to understand its systems, much like how the human immune system rejects foreign entities it doesn’t recognize.

Read also:

• Forget Life After Death: These Women Claim To Remember A Spiritual Realm Where Souls Prepare To Enter Human Bodies Through A Vortex
• This Woman Claims to Have Seen a Spiritual Realm Close That Is Very Close To Our World, She Talked With Angels Through Vibrations
• This Man Experienced a ‘Time Slip’ That Doctors Say Is Not Possible: He Saw a Mysterious Figure Standing Near Him

The process began in water, where extraterrestrial beings tested the merging of information—through DNA and blood—with Earth’s organisms. Over time, they identified the whale as the wisest and most suitable being to hold vast amounts of information. Attempts to cross water-dwelling beings with land species, including mammals, birds, and reptiles, didn’t always succeed. Early experiments created prototypes of beings like cats and reptilians, but they fell short of the desired outcome.

Eventually, extraterrestrial beings observed the evolutionary progress of hominids in Africa. These beings recognized hominids as uniquely equipped to receive and integrate information from higher dimensions, making them ideal candidates for helping the planet reach greater awareness. The extraterrestrials didn’t randomly modify hominids but chose them because they were already evolving toward higher consciousness.

As the climate changed, these beings selected hominids from regions like South Africa, Congo, Egypt, Arabia, the Middle East, and India. They guided their development in remote locations like islands to protect and prepare them. Through this process, early humans were born, with different prototypes created and tested to see which ones could best merge with existing humans and adapt to the planet’s needs.

Matias explains that humanity’s diversity and genetic makeup were intentionally designed to serve as a repository of universal information. He states that certain species, such as the Arcturians, contributed to creating and shaping human genetics by interacting directly with humans, including through reproduction, rather than conducting laboratory experiments. This process ensured that humans became a species capable of hosting diverse knowledge and consciousness essential for Earth’s development.

He describes how beings from other places blended their genetics with humans, not just to create new traits, but to carry different types of information within the human species. Among the various species tested for survivability on Earth, Homo sapiens sapiens proved to be the most adaptable, largely due to their similarities with the Arcturians. This compatibility made humans the chosen species to carry consciousness and contribute to the larger universal plan

{ https://howandwhys.com/ }

29-12-2024 om 21:26 geschreven door peter  

Among all of the supposed encounters with aliens and other strange entities, there are a wide range of reports ranging from the curious to the downright bizarre, and beyond. Here is where we get into truly baffling encounters with beings and entities that defy all classification and exist within their own realm of the weird on the outer fringes of the weird. Fasten your seatbelts, because we are going for a ride through some of the most outlandish and flat-out surreal reports out there. 

One of the earliest, and perhaps one of the weirdest and most bizarro cases of supposed alien contact allegedly occurred in Pasco County, in the state of Florida, and which was related in 1974 by an elderly witness named Evelyn Wendt, who claimed that this had happened to her when she was a girl. She said that she had been playing outside on the grounds of St. Joseph school when she had noticed an egg-shaped object nearby that glowed so intensely and brightly that she had to cover her eyes at first, but it then supposedly suddenly dimmed to reveal some sort of saucer-shaped metal craft. As she stood there staring wide-eyed at the strange sight, a small door suddenly opened to disgorge a procession of rather bizarre creatures, and Wendt would say of them as follows:

“Little people emerged. I think they were robots. I tried to count them, but they changed about so. They were smaller than I was and resembled animated flowers with faces where the bud would be.”

These truly bizarre “robotic sunflowers” were apparently hoisting a sinister-looking machine of some sort, which Wendt instinctively sensed was a weapon of some kind, and which they also seemed to be setting up to aim towards the school’s science building. It was at about this time that the witness claimed the entities communicated with her telepathically, telling her that they intended to destroy the science building because there were dangerous experiments going on in there behind closed doors. Bizarrely, they then suddenly changed their minds and began to file back into the craft as they invited their human companion to come along. She refused, but they supposedly promised to come back for her in later years. Wendt would say of what happened:

“They promised to come back for me in 35 years, but that was a long time ago and nothing happened that I know of. All I can remember now is that the saucer was leaden-looking and very pockmarked. Then, when it started up, its molecules expanded and it turned silvery bright. The UFO then went straight up, hovered a minute, and disappeared from sight.”

UFO researchers in later years sought to bring out any other details through hypnosis, but Wendt proved impossible to hypnotize. Bizarrely, the science building of the school at one point was destroyed by unspecified means, leading one to think that maybe the robo-flowers had come back to finish their inscrutable job. What in the world was going on here? Is this just a made-up delusional fantasy or is it at all real in any sense? If it really did happen, then what were these robotic flowers and why on earth did they want to blow up a junior high school’s science building? Who knows?

In later years, the 50s brought on some truly odd reports. In 1957, a retired teacher named Mary Starr allegedly woke up in the middle of the night in her home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, in the U.S., to see a piercingly bright light outside of her bedroom window. The object was described as floating over her yard and seemed to be a large craft of some type with rectangular windows on its sides. Fascinated by what she was seeing, Starr then supposedly gazed into one of the windows and could see two decidedly bizarre entities moving about within, which were about 4 feet tall. According to the witness, they had translucent cubes for heads holding within them bright red cores, rubbery bodies that were like “skirts,” and handless appendages akin to tentacles. After a moment of observing the outlandish beings, the windows then apparently vanished as if they had never been there, and an antenna or protrusion of some sort came out of the craft, after which the whole thing began to glow before silently shooting straight up into the night sky.

From the following year the late author Brad Steiger covered in his book Strangers from the Skies the case of Hans Gustafsson and 30-year-old Stig Rydberg, who on December 20, 1958, were on their way along Route 45 from Höganäs to Heisenberg in Sweden in the early morning hours along a foggy road that had such poor visibility that the two friends decided to pull over near the rural village of Domsten. As they walked about outside the vehicle, they soon noticed through the haze that there was some sort of glow emanating from the surrounding forest nearby. The two decided to hike off into the darkened, glow-frosted trees to try and see where the light was coming from, and after penetrating around 150 feet into the woods they allegedly came across the source of the glow, which proved to be far more bizarre than they had anticipated. There before them was a disc-like object resting on two legs around two feet long, the whole of which cast a scintillating glow of ever-changing colors. Even odder than the sight of this apparent flying saucer was what could be seen cavorting about the vicinity, which were 3-foot-long amorphous blobs that Rydberg would describe as follows:

“They were like protozoa, just a bit darker than most, sort of a bluish color, hopping and jumping around the saucer like globs of animated jelly.”

Nowhere on the bodies were any visible limbs or sensory organs, nor any other discernible features, and it was as if they were just pulsating gobs of gelatinous goo that could somehow levitate over the ground. Things got rather tense very quickly when these unusual entities suddenly surrounded the two puzzled men and purportedly began to engulf their limbs within their pulsating, throbbing masses, described as feeling like “magnetic dough,” while at the same time exuding a terrible stench-like “ether and burnt sausage.” No matter how much the men kicked and lashed out at these mysterious entities, they were able to either dodge or absorb the blows to little effect, as if they were made of jelly. It seemed as if the blob-like creatures were trying to drag the increasingly terrified witnesses towards the glimmering disc, and no matter how hard the two witnesses fought back and struggled it did little good.

By chance, Rydberg finally managed to tear himself free and run back towards their car with the alien blobs in hot pursuit. When he reached the vehicle he leaned heavily on the car’s horn, piercing the night with a wall of noise in an effort to draw anyone’s attention to their plight, but which also seemed to have the effect of startling the creatures enough to let go of Gustafsson. The blobs then huddled under their craft, filed inside it, and shot off away into the night sky, leaving behind a screeching whistling blare, that nauseating stink, and two very shaken men who found that they were covered in strange bruises and cuts.

Gustafsson and Rydberg perhaps understandably kept the story to themselves for some time, but when it finally came out it became a minor sensation in Sweden. The two witnesses were also interviewed by police, and although the story was without a doubt off-the-wall, they could find no sign of any hoaxing going on, and even when the two were secretly monitored when they thought they were alone, they did not let on that there was any lying or trickery going on. Gustafsson and Rydberg were also found to be in fine physical and psychological health, and in the end, police concluded that the men really seemed to have been traumatized by what they at least truly believed they had seen, whatever that was. It is difficult to ascertain just what it was that these two men saw, or at least thought they saw, and with no other accounts anywhere near it we will probably never know.

From the U.S. is an account from 1961 in the sleepy rural town of Rogers, Kentucky. In the summer of that year, the witness, known only as Mrs. Quinn, was allegedly awoken one night by a strange noise, and she claimed that there had been a truly unearthly entity hovering right there next to her bed, which she described as a big black, slimy blob with no neck, a tiny round head, gigantic round eyes, and “wrinkles that glowed.” She described it as looking a bit like “a roly-poly” and “a huge tar-baby with enormous eyes.” This otherworldly being then levitated across the room towards where the woman’s daughter, Judy, was sleeping, and at the same time seemed to reach out to her telepathically, of which Judy would say:

“I knew it wanted me to go somewhere. I found myself slipping off the bed. Suddenly, the thing released its strange force and it was gone.”

It is difficult to say just what this very strange beast could have been, but there have been plenty of theories. For some it is a ghost or even a demon, for others it's some sort of creature from an alternate dimension, while others still classify it as an extraterrestrial entity. There is no way at all to know, or indeed to even be sure that this ever happened outside of the witness’s imagination. Nevertheless, it remains a singularly bizarre report that seems to defy simple classification.

Just a few years later, in 1966, we move to the state of Oregon for an equally bizarre case. On the night of April 5, 1966, a 16-year-old witness named Kathy Reeves was allegedly walking along with her friend on a secluded dark road in the small city of Newport, Oregon, when they got the sudden, unmistakable feeling that they were being followed and watched. The two girls assumed it was just someone messing around and trying to scare them, which was made clearer when they thought they could see a dimmed flashlight beam bobbing about behind them.

They picked up their pace and even tossed rocks behind them at the unseen follower, but the feeling that someone was lurking in the darkness behind them did not abate, and when they turned around at one point what they thought had been a simple flashlight suddenly erupted into a brilliant beam of incandescent light far beyond what would be expected, which was then joined by more spears of brightness jutting from the night to converge upon them. Squinting through the glare, they claimed that they could make out a large, dome-shaped object some distance off that seemed to be wreathed in some sort of fog or smoke.

The now terrified girls began to run as fast as they could towards home, but as they did their path was blocked by three unearthly creatures the likes of nothing they had ever seen. The entities were described as being headless and armless, and as looking like mobile tree stumps that moved about on what resembled spider legs and which were dressed in some sort of multi-colored cloth. The creatures thankfully did not seem to pay too much attention to the witnesses, instead scurrying across the road to scamper off out of sight towards the inscrutable dome, which still flickered in the dark behind them. The case attracted quite a lot of media attention at the time, and was covered in both Jim Brandon’s Weird America: A Guide to Places of Mystery in the United States, as well as Jerome Clark’s Extraordinary Encounters: An Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrials and Otherworldly Beings, but no further reports have ever been recorded of these enigmatic stump-like beings, leaving us to wonder just what they could have possibly been, if anything.

From later years and perhaps more famous than any of these is the encounter reported by Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, who on October 11, 1973, were fishing on the Pascagoula River in Mississippi. As they cast their lines out they suddenly began to hear a series of strange hissing, whirring noises coming from behind them. When they turned around to look, they apparently came face to face with an egg-shaped spacecraft hovering over the river not far away, and a door then opened to regurgitate forth baffling creatures that really defy any easy classification. There standing in the doorway of the craft were three 6-foot tall beings with grey leathery, wrinkled skin and thin, carrot-like protrusions jutting out of their heads. The hands and feet were said to be fused into pinchers, and the eyes and mouths were just slits.

Just as they were reeling from the shock of seeing such a thing, the men realized that they had been somehow paralyzed by an unseen force, which kept them glued to where they were. Stuck as they were, the two witnesses made easy pickings for the bizarre aliens, who plucked them up and dragged them aboard their unearthly vessel. Hickson would later claim that he was brought aboard the ship and brought to a room with a blinding light, in which he was subjected to an examination by an oval-shaped robotic probe of some sort. After around 20 minutes, the two were deposited back onto the bank of the river and the mysterious craft floated off. Hickson then claimed that he had found Parker on the riverbank as well in a rather disheveled state, crying and praying to God.

The two went back to their car and sat there in shock for an undetermined amount of time, before heading home. They would later contact the Kessler Air Force Base and the local sheriff with their bizarre tale, which went about as well as you would expect. No one really took the eyebrow-raising story seriously, but the whole case inevitably became splashed about in local newspapers soon after. Hickson in particular went on to entertain questions on the matter and even help publish a book about the whole incident called UFO Contact at Pascagoula, while Parker ducked out of the limelight, and eventually moved out of state to avoid the constant media attention. For his part, Parker claimed that he had passed out at the beginning of the ordeal and only come to after it was over, only recalling bits and pieces under hypnosis.

The case was picked apart by some of the most eminent UFO researchers at the time, who for the most part agreed that the men at least really believed that what they had seen was real. The case of the Pascagoula aliens has since been met with a good amount of skepticism. It has been called everything from a shared hallucination to a flat-out lie, which has only been made more complicated by the fact that Hickson’s account only seemed to get more and more bizarre and complex as time went on. It has been suggested that they had a shared imaginary experience, that they were drinking, or even that they were just tripping balls on LSD at the time, but no one really knows what happened except the two witnesses themselves.

Moving on to 1977, there is the weird account of 19-year-old Lee Parish, who on January 27, 1977, claimed that he spied a rectangular UFO hovering in the sky before he was whisked into the air by a beam of light while driving home. He then found himself in some sort of spacecraft, where he was presented to three very bizarre beings. One of the entities was described as being like a black “tombstone” 20-feet high, with a robotic arm extending from its front. Another of the things was smaller and looked like a red prism of some kind, while yet another was 6 feet tall and described as being a motionless white prism with two robotic arms and a “wedge-like” head, which produced strange noises like teeth being brushed.

At the time, Lee had a strong feeling that the white one was the leader, although he did not know why he had this impression. During the encounter, the red one was seen as the most anxious, seemingly afraid of their human guest and hiding behind the others, although it did at one point extend a robotic-looking arm to try and touch him, which produced a vague, unsettling sensation of coldness and pain. Eventually, the three beings lined up and seemed to merge, after which Lee felt a warmth permeate his body and soon found himself back in his vehicle, along with 38 minutes of missing time. It is all rather odd, to say the least.

Also from 1977, we come to Paciencia, Brazil, where 33-year-old bus driver Antonia La Rubia was allegedly walking to work when he spied a rather strange object shaped like an “enormous wide hat" sitting in a field  Soon after he noticed the mysterious craft, it lashed out with a thin, bright beam of light, which caught La Rubia and whisked him away to a room of pure white. Within this room were various mechanical-looking beings with bright scales and arms like tentacles, as well as egg-shaped bodies and heads adorned with what appeared to be antennae. Instead of legs, the strange creatures reportedly sat upon rigid pedestals of some sort.

After this initial meeting, the frightened La Rubia claims that he shouted at the creatures, which seemed to have the effect of making them cower in fear. He lost consciousness again, and when he awoke he says that he was now subjected to a series of images projected onto the wall, including various surreal scenes such as a dog being melted and a train entering a tunnel, the meaning of which could not be discerned. At one point during this screening of oddities and grotesqueries, one of the robot beings apparently reached out to draw blood from one of La Rubia’s fingers, after which it splashed it across a wall to form a pattern of three circles and an “L” shape. At this point, La Rubia claims he lost consciousness once more, and when he awoke he was purportedly back in his car, vomiting and dizzy from the whole puzzling ordeal.

The following year we have a strange case from the files of paranormal researcher and author Albert S. Rosales, which supposedly occurred in Los Rios, Arroyo Hondo, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In November of 1978, a female medical technologist in the company of her psychiatrist sister, her 10-year-old daughter and two housemaids experienced a power failure. Outside a bright light was seen moving across the sky sending out “blue light rays” before going behind a hill. After this, from out behind the hill came two small lights, one yellow, and the other red. Things would only get stranger from there, and the report reads:

“Frightened, the five witnesses ran upstairs and watched from the window as the two lights topped next to a road. As a car came along and illuminated the scene with its headlights, the women could see that the lights were worn on the abdomens of strange flying beings. These were conical, twice as large as human beings (3-3.7m) and wore translucent sheets. One witness saw three black humanoid silhouettes cross the headlights of the car, which had now stopped, and move to the driver’s side. The lights and the car headlights now vanished, and loud sounds like a metallic garage door shutting were heard by the women and their next door neighbor. Then the two small lights reappeared and flew off, caught in the lights from the house. The women and their neighbor ran out to see what had happened to the car, but there was no sign of it. The incident lasted 45 minutes.”

The year after that we have a bonkers report sent to The Fortean Times in January of 1979 from Fulham, London, England, concerning witnesses named Neil Oram and Maria Moustaka. The two had just had dinner at Maria’s flat and were sitting together on her sofa listening to music and looking out through her French windows into her garden when all of a sudden her cat went crazy, howling “like a wolf” before bolting from the room. It then began dashing back and forth, all the while making that awful howling noise and evading all attempts to catch it, even lashing out at its own owner when she tried. The report continues:

“Maria exclaimed that she’d never seen her cat behave like this. Then she shrieked and gripped Neil’s hand as a huge cat-person alighted on the wall at the end of the garden. Not a big cat, but a cat-person crouching – facing the witnesses from the top of the six foot (1.8m) high wall. Not exactly a human face. Not exactly a cat’s face. Somehow Neil knew what it was like. He felt spaced out but not afraid. It seemed to emanate a powerful, quiet ambiance as it almost floated down into the garden. Maria was shaking and digging her nail into Neil’s palm. The cat-person, roughly five feet (1.5m) tall, started to walk, upright, toward them. Almost glide-walked towards them. And as this elemental of utter strangeness approached the large French window, Neil could sense an invisible steady intense air pressure building up on the creature’s side of the window.

Neil thought the glass had cracked – but it was Maria’s cat howling even more distraughtly. The absolute black furry streak of complete cosmic strangeness raised its palms (not paws) – raised its palms so they could see them pressed against the glass. Neil thinks Maria passed out at this point, but only for a few seconds, because he pulled her awake and hissed – “just watch.” It seemed to Neil that this jet black visitor was not familiar with windows. It kept its hands on the glass for 20 seconds – the demented cat, still howling – then turned around and glided/walked back to the wall…and seemed to almost float back up a crouching position on top of the wall. It turned around and looked in their direction, then seemed to be scanning all the way around…turned its back to them…and disappeared beyond the wall. The sound of weird silence invaded the flat. The trembling cat, now silent, settled on Maria’s lap.”

What in the world was going on here? Moving onto 1990 we have several very unusual reports from Albert Rosales’ files. In the spring of that year, two brothers were canoeing at a place called Lake George, near Sabbath Day Point, Warren County, New York, at around sunset when they saw something very bizarre indeed. The report says what followed:

“At the lake side it is a boulder strewn area with cliffs rising 600 feet above the shoreline. As they were beginning to come on to this area, they saw something standing on shore. It was brownish in color and standing straight up with its arms at its side. It was about the size of a small man and very thin. Its body was facing south, looking down the shoreline when it suddenly turned its head directly towards the witnesses and looked very intently. The brothers whispered to each other and watched it while it watched them. They were about 200 feet out but could not summon up the courage to go closer. The creature had a ‘strange look’ almost a crazed grin, like a giant Lemur. The sun was set now as they continued to watch it in the shadows of the mountain. As it stood next to an old, dead pine tree, it turned and climbed, sloth-like up the tree about 20 feet to the first and only large limb and onto the crook of a branch. They paddled back around and as they approached, it again cocked its head directly at them, after a minute or so it turned its face downward onto its body and became as if it were part of the tree. Just a lump on the crook of the branch, you would not know it was there unless you saw it move. The witnesses had been in the area all their life and have never seen anything like it and have not seen it since. They also noticed that the creature did not make any sounds.”

What could this thing have possibly been? In October of that same year, from Masson, Quebec, Canada, we have the story of a witness, accompanied by his wife, his children and a 15-year-old teenager, a friend of the family, who were all traveling westbound in his vehicle on Route 148 en-route to a track meet. As they drove along, they saw a strange object floating in the air at an altitude of approximately 50 feet, which resembled a large balloon with two legs attached to it and “not normal in appearance.” The main witness would honk his horn at it, which caused it to stop moving, but would begin moving again when the witness tried to catch up with it in the car. The object would speed up and so would the witness, worrying his wife, who told him to slow down before they got into an accident. He would not slow down, and the completely bizarre report continues as follows:

“His wife begs him to stop before he causes an accident. He ignores her and accelerates at 115km hooting the car’s horn violently still trying to attract the attention of the object. The object then stops moving again. During the chase, the object appeared to move at a speed faster or comparable to a normal speeding vehicle. According to weather reports the wind on that date was blowing in the Ottawa valley at 22km per hour from the southwest, this and other factors seems to rule out a stray balloon. The witness finally catches up honking violently so that the object stops moving. By the time this occurred the witness insists that the car came to a sudden complete stop on its own accord, the sudden stop was relatively mild in spite of the great velocity, according to the witness ‘it felt like a boat in the water’.

At this point, the witness notices that there is no other vehicle on the road, and everyone agreed that since the beginning of the ‘chase’ they had only passed one or two vehicles only. The object is now hovering on the north side of the road near some electrical pylons. At this point, the object suddenly rotates on its axis but the legs do not move. The two long slender legs hang limply beneath it. The legs appear to have a major joint highly visible. Both right foot and left foot area darker than the rest of the legs, also the legs below the knee seemed flexible while above the knee they appear rigid. The ‘trunk’ or head are of an indefinable color that was close to brown yellow. Somewhere towards the top of the object a very intense red light now appears. The witnesses describe the light as ‘unearthly, something that they had never seen before’. All eyes were now riveted on the red light emanating from the ‘creature’. Not a word is exchanged in the car. Children, who were previously indifferent are now petrified. The wife then said, “look at its belly’; (at this point all the witnesses were convinced that the object was alive). The witnesses looked at the belly section and noticed that it was bright with a mixture of lime green. Then the red light decreases in intensity and then the witnesses realize that the light had originated from a pair two very large round eyes.

The legs were a little over a meter long, with 15cm thighs, and 25-inch calves. The head-trunk section was about on meter wide by just over one meter in length. The eyes were about the size of a ‘cup of coffee’. This was the only occasion that the creature was seen from the front. When the red light is extinguished, the creature resumes its course eastward and away towards some fields. The main witness recalls that at the point when the red light became intense, he felt a sort of message saying, ‘leave me in peace’. His wife confirms that she clearly felt the same message. The children did not hear it. At this point they have lost sight of the creature behind some valleys. However, the witness again accelerates his car and eventually catches up with the creature after about 3 miles. 

The creature maintains a parallel course and moves at the same speed as the vehicle. Now closer to the town of Thurso the witness takes a dirt road that leads him into a field, he turns around and stops the vehicle to watch the creature. At this point, the children began to giggle and saw a scene that their parents apparently did not have a chance to see it. They creature had come to rest over a herd of cows in the field and ‘somersaults’ over the herd, scattering them around in record time. At this point police officers had arrived at the scene and began pursuing the creature and entering the village of Thurso they lose sight of it. They then turn left on the 317 and immediately see it again. There are not alone, half a dozen vehicles are now parked, and people are standing on the pavement watching the strange spectacle in the sky. It is now approximately 50 meters above the ground and when crossing the road from left to right or west to east it rotates slowly on its axis. At this point, the main witness is tired and just wants to get back to Masson. The creature eventually disappears from sight towards the north. In the weeks that follow the main witness admits that at times during the ‘chase’ he had felt very nervous and even a sort of ‘visceral fear’.”

An equally strange case from Rosales’ files was originally reported from Seymour, Missouri, in the Seymour Webster County Citizen, and supposedly happened in the summer of 1994. It revolves around an elementary school student who was out playing “Army” one day with his friends and classmates. At one point they built a fort out of branches and sticks and hung a bag of cookies up on one of the sticks. As they were playing, things would take a sharp turn into the bizarre when they spied a “big bug thing standing there” in the woods. The report describes what happened as follows:

“The thing or creature was standing on its hind legs, just like a human stands on our legs, but across its belly it had six smaller legs or arms. He couldn’t tell which and two longer arms that it used “like we do,” Dirk explained. It was about 6 ½ feet to 7 feet tall, and it was facing in profile, but not looking at Dirk and his cousin. As the two amazed 8-year-olds watched the “big bug,” they saw that it was picking at the bag of cookies hanging on the limb of their fort. “What was so strange was that the bug looked like T.V. fuzz, it wasn’t really clear: I don’t know if this was some kind of camouflage it used or if maybe it was an android.” Dirk added. Dirk said the creature had two big pinchers, one on each side of its head, two large “insect-looking eyes and a mouth like a grasshopper or praying mantis.” After the creature moved out of sight. Dirk and his cousin cautiously walked over to the fort where the big bug had been standing touching the bag of cookies.

“I reached up and touched the plastic bag and got a shock, sort of like a shock from static electricity,” Dirk said. “There shouldn’t have been any shock coming from the bag because plastic doesn’t conduct electricity, but I got a shock, and don’t know how to explain that.” Dirk and his cousin then ran back to his house to tell his mom, “Dana” about the big bug in the woods and how they wanted her to go out there and make it get out of the woods. As Dirk and his cousin tried to explain to Dana what the big bug looked like, Dana kept thinking, they’d come across a big wood roach or maybe a large praying mantis. “I finally had the boys sit down and use a pen and paper to draw what they saw,” she said. “That’s when it first dawned on me that the “big bug” they were explaining wasn’t just a big bug, but some sort of creature that was as large as a human.”

During the 11 years that Dirk lived with his parents on their farm north of Seymour, the big bug wasn’t his only encounter with strange beings. One day, he was playing outside when he saw two ‘very tall beings, figures that had hoods or hats, and it looked like they were talking to each other,” he said. They were about 60 meters away from him and he could see they were tall. “In fact, they were so tall that they stood above some of the taller trees at the edge of the creek behind my house.” Dirk said the two beings were about 7 ½ feet to 8 feet tall, and he was close enough to see “their skin was gray, so I knew they weren’t humans.” He could also make out that both beings had an initial on their hoods or hats. “The initials sort of looked like the ‘A’ on a California Angel’s hat, but the letters were mor cursive than that on the team’s baseball hat,” he explained. Dirk said he stood there watching the two beings for several minutes and they walked off. His parents also reported strange lights in the sky and Dirk reported seeing saucer-shaped crafts over the woods.”

Odd, indeed. Even more recent, and just as wild and spectacular as any of these we have looked at so far apparently happened in a rural area of the country of Brazil in 1996. On January 20, 1996, the fire department at the town of Varginha received several calls from distraught residents claiming that a “strange creature” was lurking about frightening people. Authorities thought it might just be some pranksters messing around, and went to check it out. When they arrived, they amazingly were able to quickly find the creature in question, which was described as being in some sort of a dazed state. The creature itself purportedly had short, stumpy legs, very long arms, oversized feet, and three stalks upon its head, and it also had set within its misshappen head set of glowing red eyes. The bizarre entity was easily captured with a net, which elicited a buzzing sound from it, and it whisked off to who knows where.

Later that same day there was another of the creatures seen, this time by three girls named Lilliane Fatima, Valquira Fatima, and Andrade Xavier as they were walking through a wooded area. It looked exactly like the one that had been captured and left footprints and an obnoxious ammonia-like stench in its wake. The creature or creatures were sighted numerous times over the coming week, and another was supposedly captured. This specimen was taken to the University of Campinas, and amazingly two more were also captured and brought to the University of Sao Paulo, where at least one of them died. There were allegedly many photographs taken of the autopsy, yet none have ever been made publicly available if they even exist at all. Oddly, several of the people involved with capturing the creatures mysterious fell ill, exhibiting symptoms that could not be explained, with at least one of these people dying from their sickness.

The story created quite a stir at the time, with the Brazilian media reporting on it heavily, yet both the authorities and the universities that supposedly had harbored the “aliens” denied any knowledge of such creatures. The only hint that something might really be going on was a doctor allegedly involved with the autopsy of the dead creature, who simultaneously denied having anything to do with it while also hinting that there was more to say on the matter that he was unable to release just yet. Considering that this all happened during a major UFO sightings flap in the region the public supposed that these might have been the occupants of these mysterious craft, but considering that no real evidence has come forward this will probably remain just another unverified enigmatic report that seems destined to be buried.

If all of this isn’t weird enough for you, how about some sort of alien clown? In September of 1996, a young witness in Wallace, Nova Scotia, Canada was sitting on a large boulder in his grandparents’ backyard. He suddenly heard a strange noise and looked off across a field of tall grass to see a figure standing there “with a scarecrow pose.” The outlandish report continues:

“Arms out, straight body. His hat was cone-shaped, his face features wooden. He had a Jack-o-Lantern face with an empty nose hole, but he still looked alive. But when he talked, his mouth didn’t move. The witness could hear him in his head, like telepathy. According to the witness the entity “gave off major clown vibes,” which the witness was comfortable with as both his parents did charity events dressed as clowns. The entity was roughly 6-7 feet tall, with wide shoulders. He wore ‘scarecrow clothes,’ with patches of bright colors over pale brown and black. The entity waved a wooden hand and the witness heard a voice say, “Hello, Sam. We are all colors.?”

The witness remembers distinctly that the entity asked it as a question, and he responded with, “My name is Luke, not Sam.” He wasn’t scared, he felt calm and relaxed until the end of the encounter. The entity pointed at himself, and did a short bow, then reached out into the field next to him and opened a door. The door had not been there before, and was not attached to anything. The witness could see inside the gap of the door, and the room inside was green, with wooden chairs. He motioned for the witness to come with him. The witness remembers getting up off the boulder, walking with the entity through the door, and being enveloped in bright red and green Christmas lights. They were as bright as the sun, and the had to close his eyes to keep from going blind, so he thought. The witness woke up lying on his grandparent’s couch. It was dark outside, and his parents rushed in when he called out to them. They had found him half an hour before, asleep in the middle of the field, having called for him not hearing him answer when it got dark. The witness recalled additional details of what he saw inside the green room: He distinctly recalled that there were two empty wooden chairs, and two occupied chairs further back. The door was see-through, he never saw a doorknob. He couldn’t make out details about the other people sitting in the chairs, but they had the same outline as well the first entity, the hat, the head shape, long arms and legs. But further details are just a void. Like when someone’s face is blurred to protect their identity.”

In later years we come to 2004, when a 17-year-old motorist traveling almost 10 miles north of Aurora Indiana, in the United States, came across something very strange, indeed. He would say that he had first spied a “figure” squatting down near a puddle of water and that after he had passed it he kept an eye on it to see more details. The very weird report continues as follows:

“After passing the frail-looking figure, the driver looked into his rear view mirror and again observed---illuminated by the taillights of his car---what he described as a tall, abnormal figure that moved strangely with pointed joints that “buckled out”. He estimated the figure stood around 6 feet, seven inches. “It had protruding joints and moved very strangely.” The driver said he was able to ascertain the figure, alleged to be dark gray or black and “pencil thin” stand up and take several steps toward the woods along the roadside. The figure definitely walked on two legs and was thought somehow, to be a male, although no clothing was noted. No face or eyes could be seen, but the witness had the impression that the figure was looking straight at him. The figure was immediately thought to be something out of the ordinary, not a human being. The duration of the sighting was “hurried” and possibly within the 3 to 4 second range. The driver continued on for a small distance after passing the figure and finally put on his brakes, coming to a stop at an estimated 2 minute walking distance on the road from the location of the sighting. He looked back to further observe the entity.

At that point, a second car came into view and approached from the opposite direction, passed, and then reached the spot on the road where the figure was thought to be. The 17-year old motorist reportedly watched closely and observed the second car undertake what he thought to be an evasive maneuver near the vicinity of where he thought the figure would be situated, and then the car turned around at that spot and shortly pulled up behind him, somewhat in the grass. There was an elderly couple in the car, both in their late 60s or early 70s and both with gray hair. The driver, who wore glasses said, “Boy, did you see something back there? I’ll tell you right now, that was no person.” The passenger, an elderly female said, “It was no human being. It was no man.” The elderly couple was reportedly “spooked” but offered to follow the first witness the remainder of the trip down North Hogan Road, clearly in the opposite direction of their intended destination route. It was thought that the elderly couple observed this same figure on the opposite side of the road, and possibly had observed it more closely. Later, the 17-year old witness was said to have become hysterical, and within an hour was describing the figure as an “alien”.”

Pretty weird stuff. Most recently of all we come to a case from Albert Rosales from 2018, which happened in Germany. One evening an unnamed witness was walking his dogs along the same route he always took along the outskirts of town when the dogs just suddenly stopped and refused to go any further. The witness thought this was strange, as the dogs never did that, and then he noticed a low humming sound emanating from the sky. He at first thought it must be a low-flying plane, but he could not see anything in the clear sky above, and then things got very strange very fast. The report continues:

“It pretty much sounded like a really loud low flying airplane, so he scanned the sky but didn’t see anything. It was very weird, especially in combination with the behavior of the dogs but he didn’t really give it much thought and tried to get his dogs to keep going, but they persisted and started whining. At this point, he started to worry so he looked around the area to see what could have possibly frightened them so much. That’s when he saw this strange ‘object’ standing in a field about 15 meters off the side of the road. The field usually had horses in them so it is surrounded by an electric fence. However, on this day there were no horses there. This strange feeling of dread or primal fear filled his body completely when he stared at the figure, maybe because it didn’t look like anything he’d ever seen before. He felt like he was ‘stuck’ to the road and couldn’t move. He noticed now that the figure, which at first he believed to be some sort of machine because of its silver or chrome color, had vague human-like features.

It  had four limbs all ending in sharp edges. They had some black material or liquid on them as if it had dipped them in oil. Its head also had clear edges and looked very inorganic, like it was ‘constructed.’ It looked directly at the witness and he could see that it was sort of blinking permanently. Its nose and mouth looked more like openings in its head. The longer he looked at it, the more strange things he noticed. He felt as he were looking at something so foreign to his understanding of the world and life that he was about to ‘fall apart.’ On top of its head, it had this cone like structure cut out at the very top where some sort of orb was. It looked like a perfect golden ball and it was reflecting the sunlight. The witness also began to notice perhaps the weirdest feature of the creature which was that it was extremely muscular. Still it looked more like a shell in which muscles were carved than actually organic matter. The witness also saw what looked like cables on its upper body and arms as well as stripes on its arms and legs. Terrified, the witness tried with every fiber of his being to turn around and when after about 30 seconds, he could move again so he ran away as fast as he could with his dogs back home. He did tell his parents and brother and together they checked the spot but it was gone.”

How are we to classify such cases as we have seen here? What is behind them and what do they represent? Are these merely made-up stories, hallucinations, or hoaxes? Or are they something more? When looking at such completely bizarre and in some cases almost absurd entities, we are forced to ask if they are real at all, then where did they come from? Are these from space or perhaps something even weirder bleeding into our reality from some other reality or dimension? The answers remain elusive. 

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

19-12-2024 om 22:29 geschreven door peter  

Noah's Ark

© Getty

Has Noah's Ark been found? Archaeologists reveal 'ruins' found in Turkey's boat-shaped mound date back 5,000 years ago - the same period as the Biblical flood

• Experts have dated rock and soil they believe hold ruins of Noah's Ark 
• Samples contain marine materials and seafood that suggest human activity
• The calculations also put the samples at the same time as the Biblical flood 

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Archaeologists believe they are one step closer to confirming the resting place of Noah's Ark.

A team excavating a geological formation in Turkey has aged rock and soil samples they believe contain ruins of the vessel, which puts the site at the same time the Bible puts the Great Flood 5,000 years ago.

'Noah's Ark' has been unearthed by archaeologists

© commons.wikimedia.org

The project began in 2021 and is ongoing, but the initial analysis determined samples to contain clayey and marine materials and seafood.

According to the researchers, these results mean human activity was present on the boat-shaped mound between 5500 and 3000 BC.

A team excavating a geological formation in Turkey has aged rock and soil samples they believe contain ruins of the vessel, which puts the site at the same time the Bible puts the Great Flood 5,000 years ago

In the Bible, God commands Noah to build a vast ship, the ark - capable of saving himself, his family and a representation of the world's animals

The Bible claims the ark settled on the 'mountains of Ararat' in Turkey following a 150-day flood that drowned the Earth and every living thing on it that was not housed inside the wooden ship.

The geological formation located in Doğubayazıt district of Ağrı has been a potential site since it was discovered in 1956.

The mountain is the highest peak in Turkey, standing 16,500 feet tall and carved out like an ark would be.

The vessel was said to measure '300 cubits, 50 cubits, by 30 cubits', which translates to up to 515 feet long, 86 feet wide and 52 feet high. 

A team of experts led by Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ), Andrew University, and Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University (AİÇÜ) have been working at the site for nearly one year, collecting samples they believe hold the key to confirming the Biblical story.

The geological formation located in Doğubayazıt district of Ağrı has been a potential site since it was discovered in 1956 (pictured)

The first portion of their work began in December 2022, when they collected 30 samples of rock and soil fragments that the ITU laboratory analyzed. Pictured is the team walking inside the formation to collect rocks and soil

The first portion of their work began in December 2022, when they collected 30 samples of rock and soil fragments that the ITU laboratory analyzed, Arkeonews reports.

AİÇÜ Vice Rector Professor Faruk Kaya said: 'According to the first findings obtained from the studies, there have been human activities in the region since the Chalcolithic period between the years 5500 and 3000 BC. 

'It is known that the flood of Prophet Noah went back 5,000 years ago. 

'In terms of dating, it is stated that there was life in this region as well. This was revealed in the laboratory results. 

'It is not possible to say that the ship is here with the dating. We need to work for a long time to reveal this.'

The Bible claims the ark settled on the 'mountains of Ararat' in Turkey following a 150-day flood that drowned the Earth and every living thing on it that was not housed inside the wooden ship

However, Dr Andrew Snelling, a young Earth creationist with a Ph.D. from the University of Sydney, had previously said that Mount Ararat could not be the ark's location because the mountain did not form until after the flood waters receded.

Although considered a historical event, most scholars and archaeologists do not believe in literally interpreting the Ark story.

In the Bible, God commands Noah to build a vast ship, the ark - capable of saving himself, his family and a representation of the world's animals.

The wickedness and corruption of man spurred God's vows to send a great cleansing flood.

Deeming Noah to be the only righteous man worth saving, God commands him to build a vast ship.

According to the Bible, when Noah has completed his task, and God has sent 'two of every sort' of animal to the Ark, the flood waters rise until all mountains are covered, and life (except fish) is destroyed.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

03-12-2024 om 01:06 geschreven door peter  

• READ MORE: Seasoned skipper shares images of Loch Ness monster-like shape

By MICHAEL HAVIS FOR MAILONLINE

A strange natural phenomenon could unravel the mystery of Loch Ness Monster sightings, according to an expert researcher.

Alan McKenna, founder of Loch Ness Exploration (LNE), believes elusive 'standing waves' might explain sightings of the mythical monster.

He said: 'A standing wave occurs when two boat wakes of the exact same frequency and amplitude are moving in opposite directions on the loch surface.

'When the two boat wakes finally meet and interfere with one another the results have the potential to create a standing wave.'

The peaks of these standing waves, rising above the otherwise calm waters, could be mistaken for 'humps' above the surface.

Footage captured by Mr McKenna shows the phenomenon occurring where a river meets the loch on its southern shore, at Fort Augustus.

But capturing a standing wave caused by boat wakes out on the open water is a greater challenge.

Alan said: 'The waves and the boat wake need to be identical.

A strange natural phenomenon could unravel the mystery of Loch Ness Monster sightings, according to an expert researcher

Alan McKenna, founder of Loch Ness Exploration (LNE), believes elusive 'standing waves' might explain sightings of the mythical monster

'So with all that in mind, there's now a lot more to consider here such as the boat itself, its size, the direction of travel and its current speed.

'A small boat with a smaller engine will most definitely produce a wake different from a much larger boat.

'It's a complex procedure, especially in open water, but it can happen.'

Mr McKenna now hopes to record the phenomenon happening out over the deep heart of the loch.

He said: 'Ali Matheson, skipper of Deepscan, frequently reports standing waves, but more so in the small marina within Urquhart Bay also known as Temple Pier.

'That's all fine and well, but it's more difficult to capture a standing wave in open water.

'We know that standing waves exist and they have been reported but what we don't have is the footage showing a natural standing wave in motion.'

He continued: 'Since launching LNE, it's always been my hope to capture as much natural phenomena as possible.

Peaks of standing waves, rising above the otherwise calm waters, could be mistaken for 'humps' above the surface

Mr McKenna now hopes to record the phenomenon happening out over the deep heart of the loch 

'It's a process of elimination, in my mind, as most potential 'Nessie' reports can be explained.

'Without being disrespectful, I tend to follow the reports made by the locals and the reason being is that they see Loch Ness everyday.

'I dare say that they are more knowledgeable than tourists.

'If you are unfamiliar with Loch Ness and its natural behaviour then I do believe that many people will be fooled by the water and certain illusions – it's easily done!'

When it comes to the existence of the fabled beast, however, Alan is keeping an open mind.

The 37-year-old said: 'If there are any unknown animals in Loch Ness then they certainly don't play by the rules.

'It's the perfect habitat for a shy animal with 23 miles of cold dark water and around 750ft deep.

'You could be swimming next to a 200ft submarine below the surface and not even notice it right in front of you, it's that dark!'

He continued: 'When I was a youngster and throughout my childhood, I fully believed the Plesiosaur theory.

'But the more you explore the story of Loch Ness the more unlikely that theory becomes – sorry folks.

'We've had many potential candidates over the years for 'Nessie' such as giant eels, long-necked seals, Greenland shark, large sturgeon, catfish and many others.

'But truth be told, none of us have the correct answer and that's what keeps this mystery going.'

LNE is an independent voluntary research group focused on Loch Ness, its natural environment, and its ecology, as well as the mythical monster.

Mr McKenna said: 'We invite everyone to join this group who has a genuine interest in the loch. It's not just about 'Nessie' as Loch Ness is far more than that.

'We have a great mixture of individuals in the LNE group and I believe it to be diverse.'

What IS the Loch Ness Monster?

Rumours of a strange creature living in the waters of Loch Ness have abounded over the decades, yet scant evidence has been found to back up these claims.

One of the first sightings, believed to have fuelled modern Nessie fever, came in May 2, 1933.  

On this date the Inverness Courier carried a story about a local couple who claim to have seen 'an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface'.

Another famous claimed sighting is a photograph taken in 1934 by Colonel Robert Kenneth Wilson.

It was later exposed as a hoax by one of the participants, Chris Spurling, who, on his deathbed, revealed that the pictures were staged.

Other sightings James Gray's picture from 2001 when he and friend Peter Levings were out fishing on the Loch, while namesake Hugh Gray's blurred photo of what appears to be a large sea creature was published in the Daily Express in 1933.

Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London physician, captured arguably the most famous image of the Loch Ness Monster. The surgeon’s photograph was published in the Daily Mail on April 21, 1934 - however it was later proven to be a fake 

The first reported sighting of the monster is said to have been made in AD565 by the Irish missionary St Columba when he came across a giant beast in the River Ness.

But no one has ever come up with a satisfactory explanation for the sightings - although in 2019, 'Nessie expert' Steve Feltham, who has spent 24 years watching the Loch, said he thought it was actually a giant Wels Catfish, native to waters near the Baltic and Caspian seas in Europe.

An online register lists more than 1,000 total Nessie sightings, created by Mr Campbell, the man behind the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club and is available at www.lochnesssightings.com. 

So what could explain these mysterious sightings? 

Many Nessie witnesses have mentioned large, crocodile-like scutes sitting atop the spine of the creature, leading some to believe an escaped amphibian may be to blame.

Native fish sturgeons can also weigh several hundred pounds and have ridged backs, which make them look almost reptilian.

Some believe Nessie is a long-necked plesiosaur - like an elasmosaur - that survived somehow when all the other dinosaurs were wiped out.

Others say the sightings are down to Scottish pines dying and flopping into the loch, before quickly becoming water-logged and sinking.

While submerged, botanical chemicals start trapping tiny bubbles of air.

Eventually, enough of these are gathered to propel the log upward as deep pressures begin altering its shape, giving the appearance of an animal coming up for air.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

28-11-2024 om 20:43 geschreven door peter  

This Mexican Scientist Claimed We Live in a Holographic Matrix, Disappears Mysteriously After It

His theory proposes that through the process by which the human brain decodes perceptual reality, it is possible to establish links with the Lattice and thereby make changes in space-time. He postulated that we live in an informational matrix, which he called “the hologram,” where it is possible to interact with perceptual reality not just as spectators but as active participants in constructing that reality.

From his brain experiments, Dr. Grinberg developed the syntergic theory, a term formed from the Spanish words síntesis (synthesis) and energía (energy).

Dr. Grinberg also explored the implications of the EPR paradox, which asserts that if quantum theory is a complete model of reality, non-local interactions should exist between particles. He aimed to prove that a quantum system in the brain creates a non-local EPR correlation among human brains. He called this phenomenon transferred potential (TP), suggesting that a brain, suitably prepared through meditation, can interact with other brains, both near and far, by directly involving consciousness without sensory transmission or local effects.

“When consciousness is free, when sensitivity is optimal, we are what the universe is. Ultimately everything is a manifestation of the brain structure, which in turn is a model of the entire universe. When we see the other, we see ourselves,” said Jacobo Grinberg.

Dr. Grinberg further proposed that his syntergic theory could explain the emergence of conscious experience, which he saw as the result of complex multidimensional interactions. The brain initiates an interaction between an energetic field (neuronal field) and space structure, thus giving rise to consciousness.

Contrary to naïve realism, which suggests that reality exists externally to the observer, Dr. Grinberg, adopting an ideological stance, proposed that perception is neuropsychologically constructed, with information existing in space as “complex patterns of energy.” Conscious experience, he believed, occurs when we synthesize this information-energy in space, thereby becoming syntergic. Neuronal changes in the brain cause micro-distortions in the framework of the space-time continuum, which then interact to create a “hypercomplex macro-distortion” of the neuronal field. The outcome of this process is perceptual experience.

Regarding vision, the neuronal and quantum fields’ components “fit together” in experience, minimizing the noise produced by their interaction through a specific, emergent interference pattern (IP). This pattern represents the structure of experience and contains the perceptual components perceived as lines and geometric forms, conceived as energetic forms of high complexity. The percepts, or images, we “objectively” see as colors and objects are ultimately products of the IP.

Dr. Grinberg’s ideas are related to the implicate order theory developed by American physicist David Bohm, in which space is conceived as a holographic “sea of potentialities” from which the universe and consciousness unfold explicitly. Here, the quantum wave/particle duality paradox is resolved, while the “principle of nonlocality”—the capacity of one particle to influence another instantaneously—is preserved.

During the 1980s, Dr. Grinberg traveled extensively across Mexico to interview shamans and psychic healers, hoping to recover the “native psychology” and “original wisdom” of the Mexican people. From his case studies, he concluded that shamans have highly neurosyntergic brains, enabling them to activate experiences in multiple locations in space and manipulate reality to create immediate, astounding effects, most notably materializations.

The syntergic theory both reaffirms and challenges quantum physics by reinterpreting the concept of the Lattice. Dr. Grinberg suggested that, through consciousness, the human brain could control the universe in which we live.

He explained that a person with a highly syntergic neuronal field—meaning a brain with greater coherence links—would have the ability to modify the hologram at will, achieving feats that defy the known laws of physics, much like the shaman Pachita did in her surgeries.

This theory opens the door to investigating other phenomena, such as telepathy. Grinberg conducted various experiments in which, through meditation, he demonstrated synchrony between two brains exposed to different stimuli, producing similar results.

This theory intersects with some fundamental ideas like the law of attraction, the influence of thought on reality, and linguistic relativity, among others.

The most enigmatic aspect of this theory suggests that if consciousness allows us to influence the informational matrix, and if everything is connected through the energetic interaction of atoms and thoughts, then we might inhabit a plane that is not the total reality—essentially, a Matrix into which we have been plTaced, with a brain capable of understanding its physical laws but not its origin.

Read also:

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• This Swiss Scientist Claims There is Portal Underneath CERN from where Beings Coming In & Out
• This Salt Lake City Tech CEO Found Dead After Eerie Calls: ‘It’s All a Game… We’re in the Matrix’

This idea gives rise to the concept of an awakening—of taking consciousness further and mastering the hologram. Under this premise, by fully understanding the matrix’s operation, we would simply disappear and reach a state of purity within the true reality.

Science often rejects new ideas because they don’t fit into what is currently understood. People like Jacobo Grinberg and Nikola Tesla, who were ahead of their time, are often criticized and disrespected because their ideas are not accepted by the scientific community. Even when there is evidence to support their work, they may still lose their reputation.

Dr. Grinberg tried to change the way we understand the connection between science and consciousness. He used the scientific method to explore this relationship. However, science should not be too proud to think it knows everything. It should not dismiss the unknown just because it doesn’t understand it.

This theory could not be verified, and like his studies on extraocular vision in children or telepathy, Dr. Grinberg’s projects remained unfinished after he disappeared at the most momentous point of his prodigious career.

Dr. Jacobo Grinberg disappeared on December 8, 1994, and all his work vanished with him. People have been trying to figure out what happened to him. Here are some ideas:

1. Some think he was hurt by his wife, Teresa, because of a personal problem. But then she disappeared too.
2. Others believe the CIA took him away to work for them. A judge found a clue that suggested Dr. Jacobo Grinberg was in North America, but the judge was suddenly removed from the case.
3. Dr. Jacobo Grinberg’s brother thinks he might have escaped from the world, just like in one of his own theories.

It’s strange that it’s easier to make someone disappear than to recognize their work.

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

29-08-2024 om 22:44 geschreven door peter  

This Salt Lake City Tech CEO Found Dead After Eerie Calls: ‘It’s All a Game… We’re in the Matrix’

Erin Valenti was a highly accomplished 33-year-old CEO of a tech company called Tinker, which develops websites and smartphone apps. She was known for being very smart and kind (she worked as a volunteer to fight human trafficking) with a great sense of humor and a successful career. Originally from Fairport, NY, she resided with her husband in  Salt Lake City, UT.

Her company, with 120 employees mainly in Pakistan, designed, developed, and scaled technology products built for iOS, Android, and the web. Tinker built over 700 products, including mobile apps, SaaS applications, tech-enabled marketplaces, and consumer websites for Facebook, Skullcandy, LiveNation, Pearson, MetroPCS, and emerging startups.

Before founding Tinker, she was Director of Product Development at Overstock.com, supervising a team of 250 engineers. Her company website linked to CTRL- labs, Thomas Reardon’s “neuroscience and behavior” center.

CTRL-labs assembled scientists and technologists:

• PhDs in computational neuroscience;
• Biomechanics paired with hackers and coders;
• Experts in signal processing, machine learning, and human-computer interaction;
  
• Industrial designers.

CTRL- labs published: 

“The future of brain-machine interfaces is non-invasive. Instead of surgical implants, CTRL- labs uses state-of-the-art detection and machine learning to read your neurons from outside the body. The first step will be technology precisely picking up the signals from inside your body to control devices outside of it with little more than natural gestures. The next step – and we are already closer than most people realize – will be reading the intention directly from your brain.” (Source)

Valenti had no history of mental-health disorders or substance abuse. Scott Rafferty, a Utah entrepreneur, told Business Insider that Valenti spoke of quitting her million-dollar business, but never meant it. She told him she felt responsible for the welfare of more than 130 engineers and their families on the other side of the world. She also planned to finance a startup accelerator inside her company and start a clothing line for professional women. In late summer, Valenti spoke to Rafferty about wanting an executive coach. Rafferty’s coach was about to hold a retreat in California.

On October 1, 2019, Valenti flew from Salt Lake City to California to attend a three-day seminar called Create Powerful. The seminar was held in Laguna Niguel, a beach town, and was designed to help business owners grow personally and professionally.

The seminar was an intense, immersive experience that helped people connect with their personal power and overcome fears. It cost $6,500 and promised to change participants’ lives. After the seminar, Valenti flew to the Bay Area on October 3 to attend a two-day conference in Monterey for tech founders and investors.

Erin Valenti last words: We’re in the Matrix

Valenti is believed to have been last seen by Dean Jacobson, a former manager of hers at Summit Partners, in Palo Alto, on Monday, October 7, in the afternoon.

After the seminar, Valenti called her parents and said she couldn’t find her rental car, a gray Nissan Murano. Later, she found the car and started driving to the airport, but her parents noticed she sounded “manic and confused” on the phone. She talked about Thanksgiving plans, but wasn’t making sense and spoke fast and erratically.

Valenti also mentioned that she had refueled the car just 10 minutes prior, but now it was running out of gas, and she exclaimed, “I’m going to miss my flight!”

Her mother became concerned and called Valenti’s husband, Harrison Weinstein, asking him to contact her immediately.

For the next few hours, Valenti’s family took turns speaking with her on the phone, trying to calm her down and understand what was going on. However, Valenti continued to be agitated and disconnected.

At one point, she said something strange: “It’s all a game. It’s a thought experiment. We’re in  the Matrix.”

This statement further concerned her family, who didn’t know what to make of it. They continued to talk to her until almost midnight, trying to help her calm down and make sense of her situation.

“Matrix” is a mathematical term used in the movie  The Matrix to illustrate the code used to make up simulated reality. What is the “matrix”? It is a world created by computers, built to control and transform humans.

According to reports, Valenti asked her mother, “Are you in on it?” Her mother, a retired nurse, asked if she was drunk, had taken any drugs, or had somebody given her something. Valenti responded no. Weinstein also asked the police to conduct a welfare check.

According to the family, the police called Valenti on the phone, and she told an officer she was just joking around. The phone appeared to have died at some point, and calls went to voicemail.

On Saturday, October 12, a volunteer found Valenti’s rental car parked a few blocks from where her phone was last located – on the 6500 block of Bose Lane, a residential street near the Sam Jose airport.

Looking inside, the volunteer discovered Valenti’s body in the back seat. An investigation by San Jose police found no evidence of foul play, authorities said. There were no outward signs of trauma or physical harm.

Blood tests were negative for common prescription drugs and other substances. Her parents spoke to the media and said they believed she had suffered some kind of manic episode.

“Her thoughts were disconnected. She talked a mile a minute. She’d say ‘I’m coming home for Thanksgiving,’ then in the next she was saying she’s in the Matrix,” her mom, Whitey Valenti, said.

Valenti’s husband said she had no history of mental illness.

“There’s never any history of anything like this, no mental health diagnosis, no hospitalization, no substance use, no arrests — as clear of a record as you can get. This is incredibly unlike her. She is an extremely high-achievement, successful person,” he said.

It took months for the autopsy report. The San Jose medical examiner’s office’s autopsy report determined she died of “sudden death in the setting of an acute manic episode.” Though the report did not explain what killed her, other than she died of “natural causes.”

A manic episode, characterized by feelings of euphoria, racing thoughts, and feelings of connectedness, is typically followed by a period of depression or irritability.

Valenti had a previous diagnosis of a thyroid condition treated with medication. The autopsy report noted that her condition could have contributed to her death. Blood samples, however, were not satisfactory for analysis.

It took months for the autopsy report. The San Jose medical examiner’s office’s autopsy report determined she died of “sudden death in the setting of an acute manic episode.” Though the report did not explain what killed her, other than she died of “natural causes.”

A manic episode, characterized by feelings of euphoria, racing thoughts, and feelings of connectedness, is typically followed by a period of depression or irritability.

Valenti had a previous diagnosis of a thyroid condition treated with medication. The autopsy report noted that her condition could have contributed to her death. Blood samples, however, were not satisfactory for analysis.

A police review of Valenti’s electronic communications in the days before her scheduled return showed symptoms of a “manic episode,” according to the San Jose medical examiner’s office.

Authorities also said a review of her medical records “suggests that the etiology of her final manic episode was related to an emerging, previously undiagnosed psychiatric disorder.”

A healthy 33-year-old woman, who was a successful tech CEO with no history of mental illness, attended an intense course meant to change her life and help her manage fear.

After telling her family she was excited to return home, she suddenly experienced a mental breakdown while driving to the airport. She went missing for days and was later found dead in her car, which was parked on a street where searchers had previously looked.

There are questions about what happened—whether the course triggered her breakdown, whether brain-machine interfaces were involved, or if she died from a sudden onset of mental illness as the autopsy suggests.

Notably, why did Valenti continue to mention in her last phone call that this was a thought experiment and that we are all living in a matrix Surprisingly, there are current-day scholars who do believe that the world is simulated.

In fact, humans have been trying to create a simulated world since long ago. If it is possible that humans could eventually create a “simulated world”, then how can we be sure that we are not already living in one?

-Professor Nick Bostrom from Oxford University who proposed a Simulation Hypothesis in 2003.
-NASA physicist Thomas Campbell also said he believes the world is definitely simulated and even Einstein once said: “Reality is merely an illusion.”
-Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, once said: “There’s a one in a billion chance we’re in base reality.”

Why are the leading figures of society making such absurd arguments? Are they suspecting and questioning that perhaps we have never lived in a “real” world?

Consider the following story. About 2,300 years ago, Zhuangzi, a renowned Chinese philosopher, entered into a dream and became a butterfly flying freely among the flowers. Suddenly, he woke up and a terrifying question arose in his mind: How can I be sure that I have really woken up? Could I actually be a butterfly dreaming that I am a human? The dream was so “real”!

Famous past-life regressionist Dolores Cannon once said that there are Akashic records in the universe that stores all life experiences. Some can use hypnosis to connect to the Akashic database to retrieve information about their past lives. Nikola Tesla, a genius Serbian-American inventor, also believed in the existence of the “Akashic database.” He claimed to have connected with it in his dreams, to see machines that are yet to be invented. Perhaps that was why he was able to invent machines without too much experimentation. (Source)

If what the above scientists stated is true, then could it be possible that we are actually living in a simulated world? The only question is, if one day you were given a choice, would you choose to learn the truth?

{ https://www.howandwhys.com/ }

28-08-2024 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

Unveiling the Mysteries: The Vatican and Extraterrestrial Life

The Vatican, a bastion of spiritual guidance for over a billion Catholics, has long been a symbol of faith and controversy. However, recent developments have steered the conversation towards a more cosmic question: Does the Vatican hold secret knowledge about extraterrestrial life? This intriguing notion, blending the sacred with the interstellar, opens a Pandora’s box of theories, historical anecdotes, and scientific inquiries that challenge our understanding of religion and the universe.

The Vatican’s Celestial Connection

The connection between the Vatican and potential extraterrestrial life isn’t a new concept. Historical records suggest that the Catholic Church has been intertwined with astronomical discoveries and theories for centuries. For instance, Nicholas Copernicus and Giordano Bruno, pioneers in astronomy, faced the Church’s wrath for their revolutionary ideas about the cosmos – ideas that included the existence of other worlds. Bruno, notably, was executed for his beliefs, which the Church considered heretical.

Artistic Depictions: A Hidden Truth?

Christian art, particularly from the Renaissance period, contains intriguing depictions that some interpret as evidence of UFOs. Paintings like “The Madonna with Saint Giovannino” show celestial objects resembling modern-day UFOs. Could these artistic elements be ancient eyewitness accounts of extraterrestrial visitations, or are they merely symbolic representations of the divine?

The Vatican’s Public Stance on Extraterrestrial Life

In more recent times, the Vatican has appeared more open to the possibility of life beyond Earth. The Vatican Observatory, for instance, has been vocal about the scientific possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence. This represents a significant shift from the Church’s historical stance, suggesting a more progressive and open-minded approach to the mysteries of the universe.

The Alleged Vatican Secret Archives

Conspiracy theories abound regarding the Vatican’s Secret Archives, which supposedly house detailed records of UFO encounters. While the existence of such documents is unconfirmed, the secrecy surrounding the archives fuels speculation about the Church’s knowledge of alien life.

The Fatima Incident and Alien Skulls

The Fatima incident of 1917, where thousands witnessed a supposed UFO in Portugal, is often linked to the Vatican’s interest in extraterrestrial phenomena. Additionally, rumors of alien skulls discovered under the Vatican Library have further stoked the fire of these theories. While these claims are unverified, they contribute to the narrative of the Church’s supposed involvement in extraterrestrial affairs.

The Future of the Vatican and Extraterrestrial Disclosure

As the world advances and the possibility of discovering extraterrestrial life grows, the Vatican’s role in this cosmic drama remains a topic of fascination. If evidence of alien life is found, how will the Church reconcile this with its teachings? Could the Vatican become a mediator between humanity and extraterrestrial beings?

VIDEO:

• Aliens & The Vatican | What Does The Pope Know? | Unsealed Alien Files

The intertwining of the Vatican with the possibility of extraterrestrial life is a complex tapestry of history, belief, and speculation. While concrete evidence remains elusive, the ongoing dialogue reflects humanity’s enduring quest to understand our place in the cosmos and the potential for other life beyond our planet.

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{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

05-12-2023 om 21:28 geschreven door peter  

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS - 23/12/2022

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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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An Astronomical and Historic 2022 – What We Did This Year @ NASA – December 23, 2022

In 2022, we launched our mega Moon rocket for the first time – sending the uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the Moon, we kicked off a new era in astronomy with record-breaking new imagery from the Webb Space Telescope, we moved an asteroid in humanity’s first ever planetary defense demonstration and much more. Here’s a look back at those and other things we did, this year @NASA!

Download Link:

• https://images.nasa.gov/details-NHQ_2...

Unexplained Alien Encounters - UFOs and Aliens From Outer Space

The government is hiding information about these shocking world wide sightings of UFOs and Aliens that are stranger than fiction.

Aliens and UFOs are real, waiting to be released by American Citizens! Over 1 million people plan to raid Area 51 and finally uncover the UFOs, Aliens, plans behind the cover ups, as well as finally getting disclosure! This series reveals the facts they don't want you to know, with hours of suppressed information about strange and fascinating UFO incidents in recent history.

UNEXPLAINED ALIEN AND UFO ENCOUNTERS (PART 2)

More cases, from Howard Hughes to Franklin D, Roosevelt, many important figures in history have shown an interest in UFOs.

Link to part 1:

• https://youtu.be/1jdXx9ypKZs

What Happens to Old Satellites? We Asked a NASA Expert

What happens to old satellites? Currently, they either burn up safely upon reentry into the atmosphere or they remain in space. But NASA is working on new technology that could make spaceflight more sustainable by refueling or upgrading satellites in space, greatly expanding their lifespans.

NASA's Mars Insight Shuts Down, Zhuque-2 and Vega-C Rockets Fail - Deep Space Updates 2022/12/21

ounding up the stories from the last couple of weeks, among many rocket launches we have the arrival of Korea's Danuri spacecraft into lunar orbit. There were 3 SpaceX launches within 36 hours, multiple launches by China and a couple of european launches.

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

23-12-2022 om 21:14 geschreven door peter  

Bettmann/Bettmann/Getty Images

Scientists at SLAC are applying powerful X-ray technology to Confucian texts and the Gutenburg Bible to reveal their chemical history.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Travel back in time with us to Korea in 1442, during the Choson Dynasty. That’s when the Royal Government Publications Office used an early version of the printing press to mass-produce the writings of the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius for the first time. Their press featured moveable type — the letters could be shifted and reconfigured as individual stamps.

Then in Germany around 1448, goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg built his legendary printing press. Historians credit it as the trigger for all the innovations that propelled Europe out of the Medieval era and into the Renaissance and beyond.

Gutenberg’s invention, which also featured moveable type, allowed for the first mass production of the Bible. Suddenly, monks didn’t have to painstakingly copy scripture by hand. In its first decade of use, the Gutenberg press printer 180 Gutenberg Bibles — about 49 of these survive today.

PRESSED FOR ANSWERS

But there’s a twist: The Confucian texts and the Gutenberg Bibles may have been printed a mere decade apart, but the Korean government used methods that had existed for at least 70 years that had originated in modern-day China. So while Gutenberg is the name the West remembers, Asian peoples were likely the first to ever use a printing press with moveable type to produce books and texts.

It’s also unclear whether the two printing press technologies emerged independently — or if Gutenberg took inspiration from Asia. To find out if Gutenberg was a true pioneer, a team of scientists from the SLAC National Accelerator Lab in Menlo Park, California, trained powerful X-ray beams on the sacred texts to reveal the secrets within.

To solve the nearly 600-year-old mystery, researchers might compare the construction of Gutenberg’s press with the one used by the Korean government. Both used metal letters, and it’s possible that Gutenberg knew of the Korean machine and built one using similar metal alloys, like nickel and copper.

He also may have concocted ink using a similar technique to the ink used in Korea, which was typically composed of burnt vegetable oil and glue. But since none of these ancient presses remain, the researchers can’t perform that kind of in-depth examination.

“WE CAN’T REALLY SAY ONE AFFECTED THE OTHER.”

“All we have to go on are some paintings, but we don't know if those paintings were portraits of the printing press or interpretations,” Minhal Gardezi, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student who works on the project at SLAC, tells Inverse.

To extract the crucial clues hidden in the ink and metal residues, a powerful X-ray at SLAC called the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light Source can carefully scan original copies of the Korean documents and a surviving copy of the Gutenberg Bible. They haven’t yet published results of their research, but have already encountered some clues.

“On comparing some of the Western versus some of the Korean documents,” Gardezi says, “we've seen different types of metal appear, like totally different types of metal, which is very interesting.”

The scientists have also noticed differences in the sorts of ink and stamps used. But at this point in the analysis, we can’t conclude whether the presses are a case of convergent technological evolution — two strikingly similar technologies with similar-ish materials sprouting up within a century of each other yet with no clear relationship. Yet.

Jiyoung Noh is a program specialist at the Research and Development Division of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and has collaborated with SLAC on the project since its inception.

“We can't really say one affected the other,” Noh notes. But the SLAC may soon change that.

The Gutenberg Press is considered a revolutionary technology because it enabled mass literacy, according to the Western-centric narrative that also claims the printing press first popped up in the 1450s in Germany.

But the oldest known moveable type printing press was developed by Chinese artisan Bi Sheng as early as 1040. This contraption used ceramic characters on an iron plate to press down ink on paper — printing the same document repeatedly. Bi Sheng’s documents and press were lost to time, so what we know of his accomplishments comes from secondhand sources.

By the 12th century, the first printing press with metal type had emerged in what’s now China. The early presses were used to produce currency and official documents, but later, they were also used to print other texts.

“THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, THAT IS WHAT WE KNOW IS THE EARLIEST HUMAN PRINTED DOCUMENT.”

By the 13th century, movable type presses had reached Korea, where they were employed by the Goryeo dynasty. While none of the early documents survived, we do have the Jikji text, a collection of Buddhist teachings printed on a bronze-based moveable type press in 1377. Unfortunately, the only remaining volume of Jikji is cached deep within the National Library of France, and is largely inaccessible.

So the SLAC decided to scan a contemporary copy of the 1442 Spring and Autumn Annals of Confucius, which were created using similar methods as the Jikji.

“This big overall project is called Jikji to Gutenberg, because the Jikji is the Buddhist book that was believed to be printed in Cheonju, Korea, 70-plus years before the Gutenberg Bible, so throughout the world, that is what we know is the earliest human printed document,” Gardezi says.

THE BEAMS HAVE IT

So, how does a linear accelerator enable researchers to decipher thousands-year-old documents? It turns out that the light generated at the SLAC can be harnessed to produce X-rays powerful enough to reveal ancient secrets.

IF THE METAL ALLOYS IN THE DOCUMENTS ARE STRIKINGLY SIMILAR, IT MAY MEAN THAT GUTENBERG ADAPTED THE EAST ASIAN CONCEPT.

The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light Source works a little something like this: It accelerates a stream of powerful electrons around a donut-like structure. When passing through the magnets surrounding the structure, the electrons generate synchrotron radiation, or fine beams of intense X-rays.

When one of these beams strikes the centuries-old paper, it creates an X-ray fluorescence spectrum of many frequencies. These frequencies correspond to the chemicals once punched onto the paper by a metal printing press.

The composition matters because the metal residues can offer clues as to whether Gutenberg was working with a blueprint or not. If the metal alloys in each set of documents are strikingly similar, it may mean that Gutenberg essentially re-envisioned the East Asian concept and adapted the technology to the West. But as mentioned by Gardezi, the evidence so far doesn’t seem to incriminate the German inventor.

ON THE HORIZON…

Firing intense X-ray beams at priceless and ancient documents may sound like an odd pursuit, but each page is exposed to the fine beam only for a few milliseconds and so the X-Ray doesn’t get a chance to damage the paper.

The scanning also takes place inside a radiation-proof room. Inside, a rig scans pages held upright, and a bright light travels across each page like a narrow-beam flashlight as a camera watches. Meanwhile, the SLAC scientists sit just outside the room, intently watching the scans arrive on a computer.

As the equipment processes the data, it color-codes certain chemicals on a screen. The text is indecipherable at this point. But the letters don’t matter so much as their chemical residue.

“I think some more chemical analysis is needed to understand if there really are any strong ties.”

“IT'LL BE MESMERIZING TO FIND SUCH A DISCOVERY. EVERYBODY'S GOING TO BE VERY SURPRISED.”

Concentrations of nickel show up as red splotches against the other chemical residue, which all appear blue — a generic assemblage of the other chemicals in the paper. It shows that nickel was part of the fabrication process of the individual letters in the moveable type developed by Gutenberg.

Finding different metal traces on the two historical texts could disprove a direct link between Eastern and Western moveable type innovations. But it could also result from differences in the machines’ fabrication or the availability of certain ingredients on the two continents.

“I think some more chemical analysis is needed to understand if there really are any strong ties,” Gardezi says.

Yet if they can prove a link, then the project could reveal a printing trade network using the Silk Road, in which artisans exchanged metal characters and inks in lieu of spices and fabric. That’s what UNESCO researcher Noh hopes for, although time will have to tell.

“It'll be mesmerizing to find such a discovery,” she says. “Everybody's going to be very surprised.”

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

26-08-2022 om 01:38 geschreven door peter  

Ancient records and religious texts describe multiple "Gods" (aka extraterrestrials) creating humanity in a series of genetic experiments and warring among themselves over who would be dominant in influencing Earth's future. 

The world's oldest known creation story, Sumer's Enuma Elish, and other ancient texts introduce the different creator Gods and how they formed grand assemblies to resolve their differences over the destiny of humanity. 

This new video is the official trailer/short film for the "World Religions and Extraterrestrial Contact" webinar to be held on August 13. In addition to the above issues, the trailer discusses the rise and fall of Atlantis in relation to creator Gods/extraterrestrials alarmed over humanity's rapid technological development. 

Finally, this short film covers the return of the creator Gods (Elohim/Anunnaki) to our solar system and what this means for us today.

  

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

08-08-2022 om 16:29 geschreven door peter