Space Elevator! I called it ... sort of.

So I was browsing DrudgeReport for my daily right-wing news (don't worry, I also visit CNN for the left) and came upon this article via The Telegraph.

It talks about a patent that has been granted to a Canadian firm for a ‘space elevator’ which will shoot cargo 12.4 miles into the stratosphere from where it can be launched more easily.

Holy shit, right?

Look, I know it's been discussed before by Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, but I wrote this post way back in 2007 talking about the SAME, EXACT THING. Looks like my thought process is seven years ahead of the current time continuum.

Eat yer heart out Michio Kaku. 

If you're a space geek, this is exciting news, because it bring us regular folk one step closer to having  a chance to be a space tourist, and possibly see all those aliens that are flying around checking us out and stopping our war-like behavior as well.

Yes, this is a post giving myself a pat on the back, because it justifies that these posts are all for nought.

Later.

Proof That Aliens Exist...Or Just Another Damn Hoax?

So, about three weeks ago, my good buddy (and fellow UFO-nerd) Matt sent me an interesting email with 'See this one?' in the Subject line followed by the attached link:



First a little backstory.

Between the years of 2007 and 2009, a night guard named Yalcin Yalman allegedly captured a number of amazing UFO shots in the city of Kumburgaz, Istanbul. In order to capture these high-definition shots, Yalman added a special lens which could capture close ups of almost 200 times that of a normal camera.

You can watch a stablilized version of the entire video(s) here.

In any event, Yalman captured several minutes of substantial video of the above metallic UFOs floating in the Turkey night sky.

One night, which you can view in the above video, he captured what seems to be aliens (or grays as their known in special UFO geek circles) sticking their little heads out of a little hatch at the top of the UFO.

Alien tourists perhaps?

Although I'm a big UFO buff, I like to think of myself as a pretty big skeptic when it comes to these type of videos. With the onset of computer technology, not to mention Adobe After Effects, any punk with a computer and half a brain can create a somewhat realistic UFO blazing across a clear blue sky.

However, this video footage is pretty remarkable to say the least. Otherwise I wouldn't be sharing it with you.

If you do a little more digging you'll find out that the videos were sent to many video experts throughout the world by Dr. Roger Leif, a self-proclaimed UFO expert.

And, here's the kicker, no one can debunk the videos. No one can prove their 100% legit either. But, the most important thing is that most of these 'experts' do not seem to believe that these videos are a hoax.

Cool!

You know, I scan a number of blogs, search youtube for crazy videos and frequently browse a number of semi-famous UFO sites. Most of the stuff I come across is highly suspect. However, every once in a while, I come across a little gem like this that's just too damn interesting not to talk about.

Hell, these videos definitely have me scratching my head.

So, what do you think? Major hoax? Or the truth that aliens do, in fact, exist and are visiting our planet?

I would hope the latter.

'The Aliens Are Coming'

So, I was hanging out at the pool with my wife and two kids today.

We laughed. We drank. We swam. It was fun.

A couple hours passed and we decided that we were going to leave.

On a small sidenote, the cool thing about having a boy and a girl is the fact that one parent can take one kid into the restroom and change him and vice versa for the other.

So, I was changing my kid into his 'street clothes' and as normal he started babbling. And by babbling I mean singing the Wow, Wow, Wubbzy song followed by some semi-coherent words and a couple understandable sentences followed by babble again.

Then, as I started to put on his shorts, he stopped - mid sentence - turned his head slowly to meet my gaze and said...

"The aliens are coming."

I stopped mid-pull, took a couple steps back and stared at him in disbelief.

"What did you say?" I asked.

"The aliens are coming," he said again and then went back to his babbling, sing-songing, crazy fragmented sentences as happy as can be.

Could this be true? Had my son been sent a message like the children in the Nicholas Cage not-too-shabby Alex Proyas-directed movie Knowing? Did he know something that the adults didn't know?

"When?" was the only word that could be uttered from my mouth. "When will this happen?" I pleaded with my son like he was the newborn Dalai Lama.

"VDM," he said followed by the words "Kaka".

So, assuming my three-year old son picked up Roman Numerology from these aliens...

V - stands for 5
D - stands for 500
M - stands for 1000

So, to paraphrase my son in Star Wars jibberish, "In 1,505 we're all going to shit."

The only questions I have, and this is my big uncertainty here, was he referring to years, days, hours or minutes? Or, am I just really, truly, finally going insane?

I'm going to vote for the former.

Consider yourself warned...sort of.

If I had a time machine....

As the weather turns, and the landscape begins to change from glorious green to rapturous orange and red; as I was driving to work my mind reverted back to The Time Machine.

No, not the turdy remake starring Guy Pearce. Not the not-so-funny-that-I-hoped-would-be-funny Hot Tub Time Machine starring John Cusack (oh, how the film heroes of our 80's have fallen).

I'm talking about the original The Time Machinethe film that was made exactly 50 years ago starring Rod Tayler(playing the author H.G. Wells) and the sleestack/The Fog looking-creatures that kept me tossing, turning and glancing under my bed when I was very, very young.

Okay, they still keep me up at night.

Then I thought about what would happen if I had a Time Machine. And had only one option of either going ahead 1,000 years to 3010 or in reverse to 1910 to live out the remainder of my life.

Which would I choose?

Believe it or not, both have their advantages-and 'disses' too!

If I picked 1910, I could take the knowledge of the future back and make a ton of money. For instance, I could get in on the aviation thing, use my knowledge of the upcoming World Wars, horses and other Sport Almanac stuff a' la Back to the Future 2 to make my fortune. Then, I would take my money, travel West to Las Vegas (which actually becomes a city in the year 1911) and open a ton of gambling parlors and brothels for all the cowboys, and myself.

One key negative: I'm almost 40 and back in the 1900's we wouldn't have had the medicine or medical technology to keep people alive too long. (Unless I invented it.) Some sites the average age of death in 1900 was 47 years old. Others say 57 for men and 69 for women. Whatever the true number, everyone died younger than in 2010.

Or, I could choose to fast-forward to 3010 and see what's become of the Earth. Are we still here? What new technology have we come up with? Did the UFOs finally return and for the Alien Rapture? What's going on over in Israel - is everyone still pissed off at each other. And (gulp!) is the United States even at the top of the economic food chain or did this country fall like the Roman Empire?

One key negative: What if humans are wiped out by a plague or an attack by aliens? What if a giant metor hit the Earth in 2030 and the atmospheric conditions somehow changed (e.g. an overabundance of methane gas). The second that I appear in the 3010 - I could instantly die! (Which wouldn't be too cool at all.)

However, even before I thought up this question for this post, I already knew the answer....it would be 3010 baby!

I guess the biggest downer about death is not really knowing what's going to happen in the future after you're gone.

I guess, for some people (i.e. stock brokers, gamblers, physicists), that's the biggest downer about living in the present too.

Just curious which one would you pick? Why?

A Quarantined Earth?

I came across this blog entry sarcastically hinting that perhaps the reason why we haven’t been officially visited by little gray men is due to the fact that Earth is under quarantine.

For some reason I found this idea fascinating.

As I was walking my dog last night and staring up at the crescent moon, I gazed at the millions and millions of stars bouncing around the galaxy. Well, not really bouncing but flickering.

Then, my mind reverted back to this guy’s blog and I started to think that the quarantine idea isn’t too far-fetched.

Compared to the other creatures of the universe, maybe humans are, in essence, cave men. Maybe we’re so raw, violent and (ahem) crazy that we were put here – or forced here - to colonize our pathetic excuses for living forms and make due with what we’ve got. We’re like Australia. But, on a universal scale.

Maybe our great, great, great, great, great great ancestors were part of this Star Wars like galaxy of aliens living harmoniously together. Maybe our great, great, great, great, great ancestors did something terrible to this utopian society and were banned, indefinitely to this planet?

Maybe there is an answer to life. But, we’ll never know because of some crazy incident that happened that made this intergalactic society ban us to Earth. Maybe our great, great, great ancestors were a bunch of sex-hungry retards compared to the other intellectual creatures of the universe?

Maybe we’re a planet of lepers? Maybe because we pee yellow and poop out of our buttholes, we’re considered the dregs of the galaxy?

Maybe, we’re one of 100 planets with the same sunlight and seasons? Maybe we were planted here by a great alien civilization that we may never see in our lifetime? Maybe, after our population reaches a certain number, we’ll realize that we were basically cattle for an alien civilization who will eventually return to eat us? Then head off to another similar planet to start the farming/eating process again. Only to return to ours in a million years and start the process over again.

Who knows? But it’s an interesting theory nonetheless. And I give the blogger a head nod for making me think.

Besides War of the Worlds, The Twilight Zone’s To Serve Man, some random episodes of Futurama and The Day the Earth Stood Still, there aren’t any other movies, shows or books that I could think of that hinted to this idea.

What do you think?

Is there video of a real-life alien?

An article in Denver's Rocky Mountain News states that a Denver man is having a press conference tomorrow to show the news media an infrared videotape of a 4-foot alien trying to get into a house.

According to the story, Jeff Peckman says the video 'shows an extraterrestrial's head popping up outside of a window at night, looking in the window, that's visible through an infrared camera.'

Peckman also states that an instructor at the Colorado Film School in Denver scrutinized the video very carefully and determined it was authentic.

I don't know why, but I'm such a sucker for UFO/Alien videos such as the Alien Autopsy video or the Alien Interrogation video.

Add to the fact that this little nugget of news made the DrudgeReport, and it sets my anticipation bar just a little bit higher.

Maybe it's another blurry Bigfoot/alien shot. Maybe it's another hoax.

Maybe I'm like Mulder and simply want to believe.

Whatever the case may be, the rest of us will have to wait to see this 'purported' video in its full glory when it's released on a documentary made by Stan Romanek, who has a rather interesting web site to say the least.

For added entertainment, click on the comments section and glean the reader's comments concerning this story.

Roswell, Hangar 18, Wright Patterson and My Dad.

A while back, I joked about my Dad seeing aliens at Wright Patterson Air Force base when he was stationed there in the late 60's.

After checking out this little article about Hangar 18 on a cool Bigfoot conspiracy website called Cryptomundo, I was hanging out with my dad this past weekend and thought I'd really ask him about the supposed location of the UFO that crashed in Roswell complete with alien grays.

"Yeah, I used to drive my Lieutenant there almost every day," he said. "The place was heavily guarded."

"Did you ever get inside?" I asked.

"Almost," he said. "I followed the lieutenant in, but the guards stopped me because I wasn't ranked high enough to enter."

"Well, there had to be a ton of other hangars around there, right?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, did any of those hangars have gaurds?"

"Nope."

"None?"

"None."

"So, did you ever hear anything about what was in Hangar 18," I asked.

"Everyone on the base talked about it," he said. "We thought it was weird that they had so many gaurds around that particular hangar. But everyone knew."

"Knew what?" I asked.

"That there was probably a UFO or aliens in that hangar."

I don't know about you, but I thought that was pretty cool...

Dead Aliens in Ohio! (Hmmm? Sounds like a good name for a punk rock band)

On a related note, back in 1996, I picked up a painting job at this old guy's house in Bexley, Ohio, for some extra bucks. For some crazy reason, I found out that he was a retired staff sergeant stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in the early 60's.

After we sort of got to know one another, I couldn't resist. I had to know. I just had to ask.

"So, did you ever see any aliens or UFOs at Wright Pat?"

Suddenly, and this is the truth, he became quiet, then his face got red. Then you could tell he was pretty pissed.

"There aint' no fucking aliens at the place," he screamed. "I didn't see a fucking thing!"

And with that, he fumed away in a stink and slammed the door to his house. I never saw him for the rest of the day.

Suffice to say, when I saw him the next day, I never brought up the subject again. To this day,I always wonder why he got so flustered about that particular question.

Other links about Hangar 18:
Click here for a map of Hangar 18 I found at Stanleysound.com

Click here for a documentary on Hangar 18 found at Alienmania.com

Here's an article by Robert M. Collins discussing the supposed underground vaults below Hangar 18.

Click here to view MegaDeath's 'Hangar 18' video found at Youtube.com

Although this doesn't have anything to do with Hangar 18, there's an interesting story about Jackie Gleason being picked up by President Nixon and being taken to another odd, yet similar heavily-fortified, hangar at Homestead Air Force Base near Miami, Florida.

Click here and here to read a couple stories about the incident, which was broke by The National Enquirer and now, thanks to conspiracy websites everywhere, circulates throughout the internet.

So, what do you think?

Bigfoot on Mars.

No, it's not the name of a new B-movie starring Ben Affleck and Sissy Spacek as astronauts who come across a sasquatch on the red planet.

It's a bonafide news story about the hairy beast on Fox News.

As it turns out, NASA's Spirit Rover shot a panaramic photo in early November, which was posted on NASA's Web site on January 2, 2008.

Conspiracy theorists (or bored copywriters perhaps) meticulously scanned the photos and came across the above blurred image which appears to be a humanoid alien walking on Mars.

Personally, I think it's a rock. But I'm happy to see that people are still looking up in the skies. Hoping. Dreaming. Praying. That there's possibly some life on other planets.

To read the Fox News Bigfoot on Mars story....click here.

My next post will be a story concerning the possibility of gigantic sea creatures (aka Cloverfield Monster) that are living thousands of leagues under the sea.

Hmmm. That sounds like a great title for a book.

Indiana Jones, Crystal Skulls, the Mayans and 2012.

Ever since George Lucas announced the title of the fourth Indiana Jones movie (i.e. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), my interest has been piqued.

Indy battled the Nazis for the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark? He fought evil Indians for Sankara Stones in The Temple of Doom. And, once again, he went toe-to-toe with Hitler's regime in search of the Holy Grail in The Last Crusade

Now Indy's on the lookout for...crystal skulls? To be honest, my first impression was "Whaaaaaaat?"

But, after reading a Vanity Fair article on the upcoming Indy movie and visiting some rather strange websites on the phenomena, I now have another passion in addition to UFOs, Bigfoot, the Mothman and the Loch Ness monster...

CRYSTAL MOTHER-F'ING SKULLS.

In a nutshell, it's believed that there are 13 crystal skulls of ancient origin buried around the world. Some think that a handful of the skulls are still buried beneath the ground. Others believe all 13 have already been found. Some hippies think that, as I write this, a secret society known as the Illumanati are trying to find these crystal skulls to control the world. Others think scientologists are involved.

What is known, however, is that most of the skulls have been found near Mayan and Aztec civilization in parts of Mexico, Central America and South America.

And here's where the creepiness comes in.

The skulls seem to defy logic.

In fact, everything that is known about them indicates that the skulls should have been shattered fractured, or fallen apart when carved centuries ago. It's virtually impossible to say how the skulls were constructed. To add to that, the world's most talented sculptors and engineers today are still unable to duplicate it.

Fascinating, eh?

One of the most famous of the Crystal Skulls is the Mitches Hedges skull named after F. A. Mitchell-Hedges who discovered it in 1927 while searching for the lost city of Atlantis in Belize. The sculpture is an anatomically correct replica of a human skull, but smaller.

Now, here's where it gets even weirder.

This particular skull was loaned to the Hewlett Packard Laboratories in 1970 for some extensive study. According to a number of web sites I visited, the tests yielded some crazy results including:

- The skull was carved against the natural axis of the crystal, which would almost surely make the piece shatter.
- Even with lasers and other high-tech cutting methods used today it would still shatter if carved this way.
- The lab could find no microscopic scratches on the crystal which would indicate it had been carved with metal instruments or possibly diamonds.
- It was concluded that successfully crafting a shape as complex as the Mitchell-Hedges skull is virtually impossible.

That's why the crystal skulls are a complete mystery on par with Stonehenge, the Easter Island heads and the Pyramids. Nobody really knows where they came from or what they were used for.

However, some people have their theories...

- The skulls were left behind by aliens thousands of years ago.
- When placed together, the skulls will enable humans to see deeply into the past and educate us about the future a la' the movie Highlander.
- They were left behind by a sophisticated Inner Earth society which lives at the hollow center of our planet. The thirteen skulls contain the history of these unknown people.
- The skulls were teleported along with visitors (perhaps ourselves from the future?) who came to teach earth mortals about their heritage and purpose for being here.
- They are the computers of the ancients and contain important information that will help humanity to pass through its current series of challenges and take us into a Golden Age.
- When placed together the skulls will summon our alien gods back to Earth.

Another interesting theory is that the final skull will be found and all 13 skulls will come together on December 21, 2012. Coincidentally, the same exact time the Mayan Calendar ends, which also signifies the end of the world as we know it.

Or, as some theorists put it, the beginning of the apocalypse.

Whatever you believe, you can bank on one of the above theories being somehow involved in the plot for the fourth Indiana Jones adventure. There are even rumors that the little creatures from Close Encounters of the Third Kind will be making a brief appearance towards the end of the film.

Whatever you believe, I personally think the crystal skull phenomena is intriguing to say the least.

And damn, if it won't make a great movie as well.

If you're still interested, I also found this seven-minute Travel channel segment on YouTube which digs deeper into the Crystal Skulls mystique.

Peruvian Invasion of the Body Snatchers

On Monday, villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite crashed to the Earth in their area. Read the Yahoo Story here.

Rescue teams and experts hightailed it to the scene, where they found a crater measuring 100 foot x 20 foot long. There were also reports of boiling water and gas seeping out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents also complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor" seeping from the debris.

Don't know about you, but it sounds reminiscent of The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verril - one of the stories in the film Creepshow where the main character (played by Stephen King) finds a meteor, touches it and - eventually - turns into a plant.

Let's just say I'm keeping my eye on this story.

Because if C.H.U.D.'s start coming out of the woodwork in Peru, it's time to run for the hills.

Roswell Uncovered on Sci-fi.com

I think the whole draw of the Roswel incident is that - if a UFO did actually crash and aliens were aboard - it's quite possibly one of the biggest findings in the history of mankind. Minus, of course, the invention of soap, electricity and the wheel.

No joke. Well, maybe a little. But, it's pretty damn interesting to say the least.

If this incident actually occurred, the bible and its philosophies about our existence are, pretty much, thrown out the window. Unless, of course, you interpret the 'antichrist' in Revelations as the arrival of aliens to the Earth.

Non-believers finally have some hard evidence thrown in front of their face. And, finally, we have some hard truth that there is life on other planets. It would change our whole philosophy about life and how we live. Perhaps even for the better. Now how cool would that be?

That said, I came across this site on Sci-Fi.com with never-before-seen witness testimonies on the UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico.

I kind of figured army veterans would be too scared of the government to talk about the incident until, basically, they were on their death beds. Check out the Sgt. Homer Rowlett's daughter's testimony (second from the top). It's pretty interesting.

Also, Jack Trowbridge's testimony about handling the UFO material from the crash is, in my opinion, completely believable. If he was handed a script, I don't know of any actor that could pull off the stutters and pauses of an old-man trying to recollect what happened more than 60 years ago. Plus, the guy already looks like a loon to people who don't believe. In my opinion, he had more to lose than to gain from doing this interview.

It's rumored that the dead aliens from Roswell were shipped to Wright Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio, for further examination after the crash. People say the bodies are still there to this day.

Last weekend, I approached my dad - who worked at Wright Pat in the late 60's.

"Hey Dad, did you ever see any dead aliens at Wright Pat?"

He stared straight ahead like I hit him with a ton of bricks. Then, he started to sweat profusely. All of a sudden, he dashed over to the window, drew the shades and proceeded to light up a cigarette.

After taking two long drags, he seemed to regain his composure.

"Promise me something, son," he said as he inhaled his Marlboro Light. "Never, ever speak of the grays again. You understand me, boy?"

I nodded.

Then he opened the door, walked outside and glanced up into the sky.

Very interesting indeed.