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- Legendary Humanoids: Mono Grande, Large Monkey of South America
- Inexplicata: The 1950s Caribbean UFO Crisis
- Fortean / Oddball News - 8/23/2010
- Updated Tesla Magnetic Wave Generator Can Save Miners' Lives
| Legendary Humanoids: Mono Grande, Large Monkey of South America Posted: 23 Aug 2010 12:38 PM PDT  Some mythical creatures have their origin in tradition and tales from the distant past. However, each culture is associated with a multitude of interesting and odd creatures, many of these beings are humanoids. One of these legendary humanoids is the Mono Grande.The Mono Grande (Spanish for "Large Monkey"), a large monkey-like creature, has been occasionally reported in South America. The first formal record of the creature called "marimondas" or "maribundas" comes from 1533, when Pedro Cieza de León reported sightings from natives and from one Spanish settler. In his writings, Sir Walter Raleigh referred to reports of large monkey-like creatures in South America. He did not witness a creature himself, but deemed them credible, noting the ubiquity and consistency of reports. German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who travelled in South America during early 19th century collected stories from Orinoco about furry human-like creatures called Salvaje ("Wild"), that according to Humboldt were rumored to capture women, build huts and to occasionally eat human flesh. In 1860, Philip Gosse in his book The Romance of Natural History stated that a "large anthropoid ape, not yet recognized by zoologists," probably existed in the forests of South America. More accounts of the animal came to light in 1876, when explorer Charles Barrington Brown wrote of a creature called the Didi. This creature, according to Brown, was a wild man which lived in the forests of British Guiana. He stated that on several occasions he had heard its cries, and on others he had seen footprints identified as coming from the creature. The best evidence (and most controversial) for the existence of an anthropoid ape in South America's jungles came later, when Swiss geologist Francois de Loys led an expedition to the borders of Colombia and Venezuela and set up camp near the Tarra River. Two creatures emerged from the forest and moved towards the campsite. De Loys noted that they were a male and a female and about five feet in height. He recounts how the creatures broke off branches of trees and waved them at the party. During this assault, de Loys said, the creatures began to howl and screech, and eventually they threw their own dung at the expedition. The party opened fire, and the female was killed. The male retreated into the forest. The men, realizing that their kill was something out of the ordinary, sat its body on a crate, propping its head up with a stick. De Loys recorded that the creature was skinned, and its skull and jawbone preserved. Perhaps conveniently, these remains of the creature were lost. Nearly a decade passed before the image was made public. De Loys' friend George Montandon took great interest in the photograph and published it in 1929, dubbing the creature Ameranthropoides loysi. On June 15, in the Illustrated London News, de Loys told the story of what had happened. Almost immediately, de Loys and Montandon came under attack from the scientific community. Many debunkers of the de Loys photo, foremost among them Sir Arthur Keith, proclaimed that the alleged "anthropoid" was actually a normal spider monkey, its tail concealed behind the crate on which its body sat. Furthermore, said Keith, there was nothing in the photo that was a clear measure of the animal's size.  Dr. Francois de Loys' ApeYet others have established the height of the creature at about five feet tall, saying that most crates of the kind on which it sits are 20 inches in height. The largest spider monkey ever recorded was only three feet, seven inches tall. Keith also dismissed the detail that the ape threw its own feces at de Loys and his men, although it is well-known that some types of ape do this when threatened. Still, most skeptics accept Keith's debunking of the photo. Ivan T. Sanderson, respected Fortean researcher and author of several books on the subject, also finds fault in Montandon's claim. Sanderson writes in his book, Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come To Life, "...this picture produced by Dr. Francios de Loys is obviously that of a spider monkey...". After calculating the creatures actual size, he goes on to say, "Thus this animal, with its head poked up to an unnatural degree by a stick, measures about 27 inches. This is a fair-sized spider monkey but not even a large one. The original photograph is not just a case of mistaken identity; it is an outright hoax, and an obnoxious one at that, being a deliberate deception..." Sightings of the creature have continued to the present day. In 1968, at Marirupa Falls in Venezuela, Pino Turolla heard from a native guide that three Mono Grande had attacked and killed his son with branches. Turolla later found the de Loys photograph, and showed it to his guide. The guide confirmed that Ameranthropoides loysi was the same as the Mono Grande. In the valley where the guide's son was killed, Turolla heard screeches and saw two large, apelike bipeds. In 1971, he claimed to have had another sighting in Ecuador. In Turolla's memoirs, he makes the following reference to the incident: "….toward the southeastern slopes of the surrounding mountains. The trail was heavy with mud, the incline made the going even more difficult, and finally I said, 'Antonio, let's stop here and take a break.' 'No, senor,' he said. 'Better we go away from here, out of this area. This is El Mono area.' Seeing the puzzled look on my face, he added, 'Si, senor, el Mono Grande.' 'A big monkey,' I said. 'How big?' 'Senor, el Mono Grande is big like you.' 'A monkey my size?' I said in amazement. 'Six feet tall?' 'Si, senor, Si!' 'Oh, come on, Antonio. Don't tell me such stories. How can there be a monkey that size?' 'Senor, I saw him. My son was killed by one of these monos. They are big. They are strong. They defend themselves and attack you with a club. 'I looked at Antonio, and perhaps he saw the disbelief in my eyes. But his expression was dead serious, and I knew him well enough by this time to know that if he was not sure of what he said he would not mention such things." "He looked at the picture and an expression of complete astonishment came over his face. He couldn't believe his eyes. 'Where did you get this?' he asked. Ramirez looked at the photograph over Antonio's shoulder and his eyes grew big. 'From a book,' I replied. 'The animal was shot forty-eight years ago by a Swiss geologist. His account of the incident says that the creature was as big as a human. Do you think this is the kind of animal you saw?' 'Yes,' Antonio said. 'It looks very similar. I've never heard of this incident, but if you have this picture, it must be so.'" Click for video Legendary Humanoids: Mono Grande, Large Monkey of South America  |
| Inexplicata: The 1950s Caribbean UFO Crisis Posted: 23 Aug 2010 11:05 AM PDT  UFOs in the 1950s: The Caribbean CrisisBy Scott Corrales- INEXPLICATA A great deal of UFO scholarship is concentrated on the time period that spans the Truman and Eisenhower administrations – the period known as "The Fifties", even when its cultural borders do not exactly match the chronological ones. A culture of large cars, fear of juvenile delinquency, terrified by the Red Menace and disquieted by flying saucers. Interestingly enough, the cultural construct of the "The Fifties" does not truly exist beyond the U.S.A and perhaps Canada. The decade of abundance and rock and roll meant little to a Europe slowly emerging from the ravages of a world war; Central and South America went on much the same as they had a decade earlier. No sock-hops there, either. But the presence of "flying saucers" became a common denominator worldwide as a citizenry pushed unwillingly into the Nuclear Age -- and beguiled by the promise of the incipient Space Age -- began to show interest in the strange things happening in the skies overhead. Reports of unusual objects in the sky were not unknown in the Spanish-speaking Americas. As has been written elsewhere, the first "UFO flap" can be dated back to the Aztec era in Mexico, and South America and The Caribbean had filed away sightings of oddities as prodigios (prodigies or miracles) contained in sea captain's logs and the formal reports made by government ministers to higher-ups. Religious significance was attached to some of them, especially if the sighting coincided with a religious holiday. Early on, nocturnal lights had been considered a welcome phenomenon, as they reputedly marked the location of buried treasure, thus sending locals on digging sprees. In the 1970s, few UFO books could go by without mentioning the objects seen "against the disk of the sun" by astronomer José Bonilla in Mexico a century earlier. But the mid-20th century was different. Science fiction had already made inroads on the popular imagination and thoughts of venusinos and marcianos –whether courtesy of comic books or Flash Gordon serials dubbed into Spanish – raised the intriguing possibility that sentient beings, either much like ourselves or wholly monstrous, occupied these distant yet somehow familiar orbs. The platillo volador even became commonplace in movies, particularly comedies. World politics served to further rarify the atmosphere, as nuke-toting superpowers glared at each other from opposing hemispheres. Thoughts of benevolent space aliens bent on keeping humanity from annihilation filled the minds of many. Puerto Rico, for instance, had emerged from over half a century of post-colonial mismanagement, natural disasters and starvation to become a self-governing commonwealth under the U.S. flag in 1952. That very same year, the old Borinquen Army Air Field in the island's northwestern tip welcomed the arrival of the Strategic Air Command's 72nd Bombardment Wing and its B-36's, placing the island in harm's way in the extent of any East-West hostilities. The jitters probably got worse when Statofortresses were stationed at the end of the decade (the reader will allow a brief digression at this point: the Borinquen Air Field was renamed Ramey Air Force Base in honor of Gen. Howard Ramey, a casualty of World War II, and not after Brig. Gen Roger Ramey of the 8th Army Air Force – one of the main players in the Roswell controversy). The wish for a saucer-enforced Pax Intergalactica in those troubled times tinted the messages of the active contactee communities of the period. Puerto Rico's Saucer Scenario UFO activity over the Puerto Rico was commonplace in 1952. Cases were being reported from one part of the island to another, mentioning specific locations that would become familiar "hot spots" later in the century. The turbulent waters of the Mona Passage, separating Puerto Rico from the island of Hispaniola, were a particularly rich source of sightings. On May 13, 1952 at seven o'clock in the evening, prominent politician Miguel Angel Garcia was spending time with his family at their home in the city of Mayaguez, commanding a view of the city and its bay from a considerable elevation. García, his wife, daughter and son-in-law interrupted their conversation to look at two orange disks—one larger than the other-- flying high over the Mona Passage. The politician promptly went inside for his field glasses and returned to study the unusual objects. The larger of the disks had "the apparent size of the sun, according to Garcia, and was static while the smaller one maneuvered around, switching positions with each other. García's daughter Fredita managed to photograph the strange aerial ballet between the orange disks but nothing appeared on the film due to shortcomings in the Verichrome film employed. Other residents of Mayaguez also saw the disks, but believed them to be military devices undergoing flight tests out of Ramey AFB – in an age of technical wonders, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable possibility. On August 3rd of that year, guests and staff at San Juan's Caribe Hilton hotel reportedly saw a pair of saucer-shaped objects flying at a considerable height over the ocean. The staff members – Dominic Tutela and Ramón Rodriguez – said that they had looked out over one the ballroom terraces facing the sea at 7:45 that evening and saw the two discs, flying in a north-northeast direction high above the water. The Hilton experience is not without humor, as one of the guests who shared the sighting with the hotel workers believed the objects to be "giant butterflies with extremely bright bodies," and had to be reassured that there were no giant butterflies to be found on the island. On August 8th , Robert Daly, a weights-and-measures inspector, reported seeing two disks over San Juan at four thirty in the morning. Naysayers abounded, following the lead of Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg's rebuttal of the existence of flying saucers. Dr. F. Bueso, chair of Natural Sciences of the University of Puerto Rico, told the press that "all that has been said about flying saucers amounts to lies and tall-tales. It would not be surprising if someone should suddenly report seeing brightly colored macaws singing La Borinqueña (Puerto Rico's national anthem)." (El Mundo, 09.05.52) Dr. Bueso's brightly colored macaws may have been practicing their scales even as a new sighting occurred. On October 6, 1952, photographer Frank McFerran and his wife beheld a brilliant light near Mayaguez as they drove along the road in the early evening. The object began changing colors and casting reflections on the sea surface. The McFerrans parked their vehicle at Punta Guanajibo and believed the object to be near the Cabo Rojo lighthouse. After twenty minutes of changing colors, the object vanished, prompting the witnesses to speculate that it had plunged into the ocean. A few days later, reports of strange lights would come from Puerto Rico's mountainous interior: Jaime Báez, a local merchant, was stunned by an object described as "a flying saucer of considerable size and unexpected brightness." So bright, in fact, that another witness, schoolteacher Aida Reyes, had to close her eyes, comparing its brilliance with that of the sun. Writing in his landmark book Manifiesto Ovni, Sebastián Robiou mentions cases involving multiple witnesses in the suburbs of San Juan. A circular, yellowish orb of light that was believed at first to be a balloon stunned residents of the Santa Rita urbanization with its repeated orbits of their development. The object had the apparent size of a dime, and Robiou provides the witnesses' names, all living on the same street. The last case of this early Fifties saucer wave over Puerto Rico also occurred over an urban area: a "flying saucer" flew so low over the Floral Park area of Hato Rey that people were able to hear what they took to be its engine, causing confusion. Between seven and eight in the evening on October 23rd, Mr. Buenaventura Quiñones and his wife Sylvia reported a glowing disk that made a buzzing sound similar to that of an electric motor. It would later turn out that their neighbors had seen the same object on previous evenings and at the same time of night. At this point, it is interesting to note that the late Morris K. Jessup, tragic protagonist of the legendary "Varo Papers" incident, published a supplement to his The Case for the UFO which bore the title "The UFO Reporter". This six-page document mentions a mini-flap taking place in Florida, specifically centered around Miami. "South Florida and the neighboring oceanic areas of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean Region of the Bahamas have long been a theatre of mystery, particularly with regard to such phenomena as have been attributed to UFO in The Case for the UFO," writes Jessup in his addendum. "When the UFO were plaguing Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1952, there was a veritable rash of UFO phenomena centered around Miami, Florida!" Jessup enumerates thirty-one entries in which objects resembling parallelograms, yellow-orange objects, moon-like phenomena and balls of fire are reported between July and September 1952, with some later dates added in. Entry #25 reads: "There were many reports from Cuba during this period. They are well documented in the Spanish-language press of Havana." Dr. Jessup was not exaggerating, and we shall see some of these cases later on. Another writer of the times, Harold T. Wilkins, was moved to say the following about these years in the pages of his Flying Saucers on the Attack (NY: Ace, 1954): "...some types of the flying saucers follow a curious pattern in flight. These objects rise slowly and vertically from the surface of the earth, then move for a short way in a horizontal line, again rise vertically, and in a series of steps, reach the desired altitude, and finally accelerate in a tremendous burst of speed." The vertical ascents and rapid accelerations were clearly present in the Caribbean cases. Aviation and Explosions A four-year hiatus ensued after this early wave of sightings in Puerto Rico. Perhaps the unknown objects had learned all there was to know about humanity, or had else despaired from imposing peace upon bellicose mankind. On March 11, 1957 Pan Am Airlines Flight 257 from New York to San Juan, Puerto Rico, had a brush with the unknown: at four thirty in the morning, while passengers slept or engaged in quiet conversation with each other, the pilot, Captain Matthew Van Winkle, was forced to make a violent evasive maneuver to avoid a collision with a strange bolide that was heading right toward the airliner. Passengers and flight attendants – except for those who had wisely never unfastened their seatbelts – flew out of their seats and crashed into the bulkheads. According to reports, the pilot had seen an object described as having "a shiny greenish core and an outer ring that reflected the inner glow." Frantically executing an evasive maneuver, Van Winkle climbed 1500 feet above the object in a matter of seconds. According to San Juan's El Mundo newspaper, Van Winkle's initial impression was that he was seeing the burning exhaust gases of a rocket airplane, followed by a glowing light. Pilots from other airlines two to three hundred miles away, flying the same route toward Puerto Rico, reportedly saw the same object. John Walsh, a pilot with TransCaribbean Airways, very much doubted that "he'd seen a meteorite." Airplanes had always been a source of curiosity to the unknown objects along the decade, and Captain Van Winkle was hardly an exception. A few months after his experience, a Brazilian pilot would have a similar encounter on the Rio-to-Victoria route: after following the airliner at a distance, a round object emitting light from its upper and lower sections entered a cloud formation, enabling the plane's passengers and crew to make out "illuminated portholes or windows" on the object's structure. When the intruder exited the cloud, it no longer showed any lights, vanishing in the general vicinity of Guaraparí. The summer of '57 would bring more UFO activity to the Caribbean Basin and beyond. On June 4th at around seven o'clock in the morning, a tremendous luminous object crossed the skies over Venezuela, flying over the Sierra de Coro before the eyes of many witnesses as the local airport. An hour later, a deafening explosion caused by a luminous, Sun-sized orb shook the ground near Arapuey, prompting many to wonder if the nuclear holocaust had already begun, engulfing their unimportant mountain hamlets. Venezuela would continue to report significant activity for weeks, ranging from gigantic disks hovering over cement factories, cigarette-shaped craft speeding by at remarkable speeds, and even more explosions of unknown origin (EUOs?) like the ones that shook the city of Carora on June 3-4, 1957, felt over a thousand-kilometer radius. The Cuban Cases Information has emerged in recent years on Cuba's UFO sightings in the 1950s. One would think that with all the excitement on the ground in pre-Revolutionary days, few would be inclined to look up. And in fact, the earliest UFO report from the largest island in the Caribbean comes not from terrestrial onlookers but from a pilot: On March 16, 1950, Captain Miguel Murciano of the Compañía de Aviación Cubana reported having timed the progress of an unknown object over Antilla airport on the island's eastern edge. The strange object, he said, was traveling at extraordinary speeds at an altitude in excess of five thousand feet "covering eight degrees in sixteen minutes" – a measurement aided by a theodolite. According to Captain Murciano, he first saw the object at ten fifteen a.m. during a routine flight from Santiago de Cuba to Antilla. All crewmembers and passengers saw the object due to the excellent visual conditions, agreeing that whatever it was, it wasn't an airplane. Dr. Sergio Cervera of the Comisión Investigadora de Fenómenos Aéreos (CIFA) compiled a list of significant UFO-related cases in Cuba going as far back as the 1930s. Dr. Cervera's notes for the year 1952 include a sighting by some fifty witnesses in the village of Candonga, Palma Soriano Municipality, in Oriente Province. A very bright light appeared over the community, remained suspended, and then began zigzagging, engaging in a "cosmic ballet" that mesmerized onlookers for nearly an hour. In 1953, Mr. Waldo Martinez, a former lieutenant in the Cuban army, was driving a military jeep toward a hospital in the city of Trinidad when his vehicle's engine shut down after taking a hairpin curve. It was then he noticed a powerful green light flying past his jeep, landing some 200 meters away. According to the Cervera archives, the object's lights dimmed as the jeep regained its power and Mr. Martinez and his passengers resumed their journey. This CE-2 included the discovery of a burned circle on the ground, measuring some sixty feet across. Researcher Orestes Girbau mentions an unusual event that took place on July 5, 1959 in the Bay of Matanzas on the island of Cuba. A group of Boy Scouts and their troop leaders had gone out on a hike along the coast, setting out from the Versalles district of the city. The time was nine thirty in the morning under clear, sunny skies. The thirty or so people involved had no idea that they would soon be going down in history as part of one of the Caribbean's most intriguing cases of that decade. "Unexpectedly," writes Girbau in Nuestros Foráneos, "shouts were heard from the scoutmasters, saying: look at that! as the entire formation broke ranks and ran toward the beach. Impressed, they watched an object which, according to the first of that number to see it, had emerged from the sea and was balancing gently only a few meters over the surface. The object was oval-shaped, although some insisted it was shaped like a top and yet others described it as a disk. Seconds later, the glowing disk leveled off, parallel with the sea, and rose straight up at an astonishing rate of speed, vanishing into the blue in less than 15 seconds." Once settled down, the witnesses agreed that the object was metallic in appearance and silver in color. Corroboration for the large group's experience came from a nearby boat with two fishermen who bemusedly watched the phenomenon. The device, writes Girbau, was wingless and between 20 and 26 feet in diameter, noiseless and lacking any manner of exhaust. On July 6, 1959, the Adelante newspaper ran a headline reading: "Strange Machine in the Bay of Matanzas", claiming that the exact nature of the object remained unclear "in spite of the investigations conducted...with the inevitable speculation as to whether it was a flying saucer or another of object of the kind that flies through space." The fishermen who witnessed the Bay of Matanzas incident were not the only ones treated to a UFO sighting. Also in 1959, but with no specific date given, Pablo Rodriguez had been fishing off the Havana coast early in the morning, accompanied by a friend. All of a sudden, the waters near the fishing boat began to bubble intensely as a massive silvery disk emerged from the depths, hanging in mid-air and dripping seawater before taking off at great speed. As if that experience had not been shocking enough, Rodriguez claimed seeing "some figures clad in black, like undersea fishermen" swimming only a few meters from his boat. A USO and CE-3 event, all in one. This Cuban mini-flap continued into the early years of the following decade. In 1960, Henry R. Gallart reported a UFO over the Sierra Maestra late one evening in January as he spoke to a group of soldiers on his property. In mid-discussion, they were interrupted by the arrival of a large fireball that passed silently overhead at less than a thousand feet over their heads. According to Gallart, visibility was optimal in the starry, tropical night. The UFO left a wake of multicolored sparks before vanishing. In early May 1961, Gallart would also be treated to a second sighting over the Texaco Oil Refinery at the edge of the Bay of Santiago, this time at 10:45 a.m. – the object resembled a rugby ball, by his own description (although other texts have described it as a "metallic sphere") and engaged in a "falling leaf" motion. The sighting was corroborated by other office and field workers at the refinery. The 1959-60 saucer wave spilled over into English-speaking Jamaica. The late Antonio Ribera included an interesting early case in his OVNIS en Iberoamerica y España (Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1980). On August 12, 1960, writes Ribera, Karl Rhoden, a provisional court clerk reported seeing two brilliant objects resembling inverted "letter Ys" flying single file and around 20 miles an hour over the Halfmoon Hotel. The objects were headed seaward from land, and suddenly the first object, at an estimated ten miles over the ground, increased its speed and vanished. The second object appeared to be engaged in some kind of reconnoitering activity and stayed behind before following suit. Mr. Rhoden told the Daily Gleaner newspaper that he believed the objects not to be terrestrial, but rather mechanical devices. He added that other local residents saw them as well. (Daily Gleaner, 08.16.60) Hispaniola For information on 1950s "saucer activity" over Hispaniola, we must turn again to Sebastián Robiou, who went to great lengths to document activity on the second largest of the Greater Antilles. On November 3, 1957, Santo Domingo's El Caribe newspaper ran a story concerning the remarkable sighting of four unknown objects "resembling flying saucers" over the city over the Barahona coffee factory. According to journalist Julio Lembert, "the strange and unexpected apparition of the strange devices, which came within 100 meters of the facility, caused tremendous surprise among the factory workers who saw them at 6:30 in the morning yesterday (Nov. 1). According to statements made by Messrs. Amador Ponds and Negro Reyes, the first to see the strange craft, these approached at low altitude and remained motionless when they reached a concrete structure used to dry out the coffee. They remained there for two minutes." One might be tempted to believe, half-humorously, that alien pilots needed a coffee-break as much a trucker might. But Lembert's narrative continues: "Eyewitnesses to the odd manifestations say that the objects were round and had a sort of gyrating dome at the in the middle. They flew in tight formation, imitating a "letter Y" (the reader will recall the Jamaican case) and their low altitude enabled the factory workers to get a good look. While we were unable to see any portholes or occupants—they said—we understand that the height of domes would allow a man of normal height to sit within them. In Ponds and Reyes's opinion, as well as that of other employees, the size of the objects was about six feet in diameter. After remaining over the factory for the indicated period of time, the four objects headed east at dizzying speed, without making the least sound, vanishing from sight in seconds." El Caribe's edition for the following day understandably remarks that the unexpected visit from the inquisitive objects has become "the talk of the town" and that locals are suffering from neck strain from looking up at the sky so much. Other workers – whose names are given in the newspaper – stepped forward to add their names to the original witnesses. Weeks later, an "elongated, grayish object with an intense glow in its forward section" was seen after midnight on November 15 in Baní, witnessed by Francisco Fuertes, a deputy Municipal union worker. The object vanished behind a cloud and did not emerge again. UFOs took an interest in the Dominican Republic's hydroelectric works during this period. A strange blue glow, as bright as a welder's arc, emerged from an unknown object that flew over the Jimenoa Hydroelectric Plant on November 16 and 17th in the early evening. Witnesses Manuel Crune and Luis Padilla described it as resembling a very bright Christmas ornament, moving slowly fron south to north. Conclusion Activity in the Caribbean Basin may not have been as spectacular as elsewhere on the continent, but these cases provide signs of a progression toward conceivably more important events, such as the landings and close encounters that characterized the '60s and '70s in the region. No substantial literature emerged at this time beyond newspaper reports and the inevitable denials by officialdom. A number of contactee tracts circulated at the time, colored by doses of Kardecian spiritism, providing dire warnings about the end of the world and of course, the deus ex machina of salvation by the ever watchful saucerians. NOTE: Thanks again to Scott Corrales at Inexplicata for allowing me to post his article. Lon Inexplicata: The 1950s Caribbean UFO Crisis  |
| Fortean / Oddball News - 8/23/2010 Posted: 23 Aug 2010 11:31 AM PDT Scientists Hail Breakthrough In Fight Against Deadly Ebola Virus  independent - Scientists have developed a new kind of "antisense" drug that has produced promising results in laboratory trials involving the Ebola and Marburg viruses, two of the most lethal known. The drug works by blocking the critical genes that the viruses use to replicate quickly inside the body to give patients valuable time to mount their own immune defence against the viral haemorrhagic fevers.Tests on laboratory animals have shown that the antisense drugs are effective at fending off Ebola and Marburg, which cause rapid and intense fever and internal bleeding fatal in about 90 per cent of cases. There are at present no effective treatments or vaccines against either of the viruses, which are highly infectious and have caused particular concern because of the possibility of them being used in biowarfare or as a terrorist weapon. The antisense drugs are composed of short strands of nucleic acids which form a sequence that is complementary or opposite to the nucleic acid sequence found in the genes of the viruses. They work by binding to the viral genes and blocking their action, giving time for the immune defences of the patients to launch an attack on the invading viruses, the scientists said. The researchers, from the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (Usamriid), report in the journal Nature Medicine that an antisense drug called AVI-6002 resulted in a survival rate of better than 90 per cent in laboratory mice and guinea pigs exposed to the Ebola virus. When the scientists tested the drug on laboratory monkeys, three out of five survived. A similar antisense drug, called AVI-6003, proved even more successful against the Marburg virus, with every one of the treated monkeys surviving a viral attack, the study showed. Ebola and Marburg are considered so dangerous that the research had to be done in special laboratories with the highest security classification, known as biosafety level 4, where the scientists had to wear space-suits and breathe filtered air to protect them as they did their experiments. The scientists, led by Travis Warren of the Usamriid, believe the results are good enough to warrant clinical trials in humans and the US Food and Drug Administration has given permission to proceed. The scientists said they have developed "human-grade" antisense drugs that could be used on people after an emergency in 2004, when a laboratory worker in the Usamriid was accidentally pricked in the thumb with a needle while treating Ebola-infected mice. The female worker was isolated, but found to be uninfected, so the human-grade antisense drug was not used on her. But the facility has worked with biotechnology company AVI BioPharma to develop antisense drugs to be used in human clinical trials. *********** Does the Past Exist Yet? Evidence Suggests Your Past Isn't Set in Stone HP - Recent discoveries require us to rethink our understanding of history. "The histories of the universe," said renowned physicist Stephen Hawking "depend on what is being measured, contrary to the usual idea that the universe has an objective observer-independent history." Is it possible we live and die in a world of illusions? Physics tells us that objects exist in a suspended state until observed, when they collapse in to just one outcome. Paradoxically, whether events happened in the past may not be determined until sometime in your future -- and may even depend on actions that you haven't taken yet. In 2002, scientists carried out an amazing experiment, which showed that particles of light "photons" knew -- in advance −- what their distant twins would do in the future. They tested the communication between pairs of photons -- whether to be either a wave or a particle. Researchers stretched the distance one of the photons had to take to reach its detector, so that the other photon would hit its own detector first. The photons taking this path already finished their journeys -− they either collapse into a particle or don't before their twin encounters a scrambling device. Somehow, the particles acted on this information before it happened, and across distances instantaneously as if there was no space or time between them. They decided not to become particles before their twin ever encountered the scrambler. It doesn't matter how we set up the experiment. Our mind and its knowledge is the only thing that determines how they behave. Experiments consistently confirm these observer-dependent effects. More recently (Science 315, 966, 2007), scientists in France shot photons into an apparatus, and showed that what they did could retroactively change something that had already happened. As the photons passed a fork in the apparatus, they had to decide whether to behave like particles or waves when they hit a beam splitter. Later on - well after the photons passed the fork - the experimenter could randomly switch a second beam splitter on and off. It turns out that what the observer decided at that point, determined what the particle actually did at the fork in the past. At that moment, the experimenter chose his history. Of course, we live in the same world. Particles have a range of possible states, and it's not until observed that they take on properties. So until the present is determined, how can there be a past? According to visionary physicist John Wheeler (who coined the word "black hole"), "The quantum principle shows that there is a sense in which what an observer will do in the future defines what happens in the past." Part of the past is locked in when you observe things and the "probability waves collapse." But there's still uncertainty, for instance, as to what's underneath your feet. If you dig a hole, there's a probability you'll find a boulder. Say you hit a boulder, the glacial movements of the past that account for the rock being in exactly that spot will change as described in the Science experiment. But what about dinosaur fossils? Fossils are really no different than anything else in nature. For instance, the carbon atoms in your body are "fossils" created in the heart of exploding supernova stars. Bottom line: reality begins and ends with the observer. "We are participators," Wheeler said "in bringing about something of the universe in the distant past." Before his death, he stated that when observing light from a quasar, we set up a quantum observation on an enormously large scale. It means, he said, the measurements made on the light now, determines the path it took billions of years ago. Like the light from Wheeler's quasar, historical events such as who killed JFK, might also depend on events that haven't occurred yet. There's enough uncertainty that it could be one person in one set of circumstances, or another person in another. Although JFK was assassinated, you only possess fragments of information about the event. But as you investigate, you collapse more and more reality. According to biocentrism, space and time are relative to the individual observer - we each carry them around like turtles with shells. History is a biological phenomenon − it's the logic of what you, the animal observer experiences. You have multiple possible futures, each with a different history like in the Science experiment. Consider the JFK example: say two gunmen shot at JFK, and there was an equal chance one or the other killed him. This would be a situation much like the famous Schrödinger's cat experiment, in which the cat is both alive and dead − both possibilities exist until you open the box and investigate. "We must re-think all that we have ever learned about the past, human evolution and the nature of reality, if we are ever to find our true place in the cosmos," says Constance Hilliard, a historian of science at UNT. Choices you haven't made yet might determine which of your childhood friends are still alive, or whether your dog got hit by a car yesterday. In fact, you might even collapse realities that determine whether Noah's Ark sank. "The universe," said John Haldane, "is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." ********** Paralyzed By Love telegraph - Matt Frerking, 39, from Portland, Oregon, is left immobile if he even has a romantic thought or sees others showing displays of affection. The affliction has been diagnosed as a combination of the chronic sleeping disorder narcolepsy with cataplexy, a sudden weakening of the muscles which renders the person temporarily immobile but still aware of their surroundings and able to hear. For Mr Frerking the feeling that sparks an attack is love and being around his family can send him into a state of physical paralysis. He is unable to put his arm around Trish, his wife of 13 years, and suffers attacks on anniversaries. He can suffer attacks several times a day "Holding hands in public is something that we can do for a few seconds at most, and that's about it," Mr Frerking said. "Putting my arm around her is something that I don't do unless we're sitting down and I know that it won't matter that much if I just flop over. I have to limit those things very carefully." During an interview with ABC News, he described having to avoid "warm and fuzzy" feelings before passing out after looking at photos in his wedding album. Attacks are also triggered by trailers for romantic films and Mr Frerking said he tries to stave them off by thinking about scientific research. Carol Ash, a sleep specialist at the Sleep for Life Center in New Jersey, said: "In someone like Matt strong emotions are flipping a switch." ********** Wild Pigs Going On The Pill MNN - Hog hunting is a popular pastime in Alabama, where feral pigs roam the better part of the state – but even the irrepressible Southern appetite for pork isn't enough to keep populations under control. After a $44 million loss in hog-damaged crops in 2009, authorities are looking toward an unconventional solution: birth control. AL.com reports that Auburn University, backed by the Alabama Farmers Federation, hopes to get feral hog populations down to a manageable level using birth control. Not that they expect these puckish pigs to pop pills; the contraceptives would be delivered with baited food. There's just one problem: keeping other animals from taking the bait and ending up sterile. "No species-specific oral contraceptive has been developed," Steve Ditchkoff, associate professor in the School of Forestry and Wildlife, told AL.com. "But we're working on it." Though not originally native to Alabama, wild hogs first appeared in only a handful of counties before spreading to nearly the entire state, possibly due to trappers re-releasing live animals into new habitats. They breed quickly, reaching sexual maturity as early as four months of age with females giving birth to litters with as many as 12 piglets up to twice per year. Auburn University's solution is not your average hormonal contraceptive. To make it pig-specific, researchers hope to initiate an immune reaction in the reproductive system, essentially making the pigs allergic to getting pregnant. NOTE: the wild hog explosion has advanced into several U.S. states...especially in the south and the upper midwest. I have posted on this previously...please use the blog search tool. Lon *********** Prime Example of Selective Breeding in America Click for video NOTE: For our friends overseas...OH Napier is what we Americans refer to as a REDNECK. The most blatant examples of this hybrid species congregate in the mountains and foothills of Appalachia but can be found anywhere in these United States...to the chagrin of most citizens. Lon Fortean / Oddball News - 8/23/2010  |
| Updated Tesla Magnetic Wave Generator Can Save Miners' Lives Posted: 23 Aug 2010 09:17 AM PDT  sciencemag - In early January 2006, a methane explosion tore through a coal mine in Sago, West Virginia, trapping 13 miners nearly 100 meters underground. Cut off from communicating with the miners, authorities could not determine where they were—or even if they were still alive. By the time rescuers reached the miners 2 days later, all but one had died. After the incident, Gary Smith, a retired engineer, sent a letter to his ex-manager at the Lockheed Martin Corp. in Syracuse, New York. Smith, who grew up in a West Virginia mining family, asked his former colleagues if anyone knew of a technology that could provide reliable communications during such disasters. After reading reports of the Sago incident and discussing similar emergencies with federal mine safety officials, the Lockheed Martin engineers updated a very old one. The team focused on a concept developed over a century ago by Nikola Tesla. The noted pioneer in electricity and radio had shown that a magnetic wave generator could be used for wireless communications. Basically, the generator works like an electromagnet. Powered by standard alternating current or battery, it runs electricity through a wire that is coiled around a metal cylinder, creating a harmless, low-energy magnetic field that extends for hundreds of meters. Just like radio, the field can carry an audio signal by modulating (raising or lowering) its strength instant by instant. But unlike radio, cell phones, and satellite phones—whose electromagnetic waves can't pass very far through rock, clay, or other materials that conduct electricity—a magnetically generated signal penetrates the ground easily. On the other end, a coiled antenna wire about 100 meters long receives the signal, and an amplifier converts it into sound. In the 1890s, Tesla experimented with the concept as a possible alternative to Marconi's wireless telegraph. But the device's relatively short range and high signal noise made it impractical for widespread use. Short range is not a problem in most mine situations, explains engineer David LeVan, who led the Lockheed Martin research team. The devices the group developed, called the MagneLink Magnetic Communication System, combine a refrigerator-size magnetic generator with a briefcase-size receiving antenna. One such unit operates on the surface; the other, down in the mine. LeVan says tests earlier this year at a mine in Mavisdale, Virginia, showed that the low-frequency signal can penetrate through 500 meters of solid rock, making it usable in more than 85% of underground mines in the United States. The team solved the problem of signal noise with the same type of digital signal-processing software used in cellular phones, LeVan says. The software also allows users to send and receive text messages. Although the units are rather bulky, they fit easily next to miners' emergency shelters with other lifesaving equipment. The underground transmission antenna is wrapped around one of the coal pillars that help to support the roof of the mine tunnel. A box made of polycarbonate (photo, in foreground) houses the receiving antenna. Each generating unit can operate at least 24 hours on 12-volt battery power, which complies with U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) requirements, and contains a telephone handset and text-message pad. Its low energy output means it poses no danger of sparking, which could set off an explosion if methane gas is present. MagneLink program manager Warren Gross says that during field tests, miners offered many suggestions for making the units simpler to operate in emergencies. It's important, he says, that users need only turn the unit on, pick up the phone, and talk or text. Gross says the company is awaiting MSHA certification. If the agency approves the system, he says the units should start rolling off the assembly line by the end of this year. Todd Moore, the director of safety services for CONSOL Energy, a coal-mining company in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, says he has been advocating for this technology ever since the Sago disaster, which involved another coal company. "No one can predict what will be destroyed" in an explosion, says Moore, a lifelong mining safety engineer who assisted in the Sago rescue effort. "Our coal mines are the size of downtown Manhattan." Moore, who has supervised MagneLink tests but was not involved in the research, envisions each mine being equipped with at least several underground units, while topside units move around as necessary. "I am truly convinced [it] can save lives in the coal industry," he says. ********** MagneLink Magnetic Communication System (MCS) MagneLink™ Magnetic Communication System (MCS) is a wireless, through-the-earth communication system developed by Lockheed Martin to meet the mining industry's post-accident emergency wireless communications requirement. MagneLink MCS works by transmitting magnetic waves through the earth without the transmission wires and in-ground infrastructure currently required to communicate via standard radio communications. It is portable and provides wireless two-way, voice and text communications, and operates at ranges sufficient to communicate from the surface into shallow-to-deep underground mines. The system will bring a tremendous emergency communications capability to the mining industry in the event of an accident where miners are trapped and have no other means of communicating with rescue teams on the surface. Lockheed Martin has leveraged its advanced communications and signal processing expertise to successfully develop this unique system in coordination with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to help save miners' lives where possible following a mine accident. Lockheed Martin recently conducted three successful MagneLink MCS in-mine demonstrations. In December 2009, the MagneLink MCS Engineering Development Model's functionality for voice and text communications was successfully demonstrated at a commercial mine in Dilliner, Pa. In March 2010, Lockheed Martin tested MagneLink MCS at the Contrary Portal of CONSOL Energy's Buchanan Mine in Mavisdale, Va. The system demonstrated successful two-way text and voice communications to a depth of 1550 feet and two-way text communications in excess of 1550 feet. In June 2010, MagneLink MCS in-mine demonstrations were conducted at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health Test Mine in Bruceton, Pa. The system interfaced with hand-held radios similar to the miner emergency radios and successfully functioned as a multi-band receiver, establishing communications with multiple MagneLink MCS units without the requirement for the MCS units to be on the same channel to receive transmissions. Lockheed Martin and the Mining Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) are currently working to certify the equipment for use in mines. MagneLink MCS systems will be available following MSHA certification. lockheedmartin.com Updated Tesla Magnetic Wave Generator Can Save Miners' Lives ********** Hi...if you read 'Phantoms and Monsters' you really need to become a free member at the 'Phantoms and Monsters' wiki and discussion site. All paranormal, UFO, government, conspiracy, unexplained phenomena, alternative subjects are discussed. As a member, you can post your own narratives, experiences, etc. Give it a try...Lon Phantoms & Monsters Wiki A network for paranormal investigators, enthusiasts and those seeking the truth ********** Send us an email   New Items - Strickler's Celebrity Autographs   "The latest news from beyond the mainstream" Join Ben & Aaron for their weekly podcast! Check out Mysterious Universe Plus+ all access format!  Spirit Rescue International Providing professional spiritual help, support and guidance worldwide SPIRIT RESCUE INTERNATIONAL - HAUNTED HELP FORUM We created this community for people from all backgrounds around the world to discuss Spiritual, Paranormal, Metaphysical, Philosophical, Supernatural, Complementary Therapies, and Esoteric subjects. From Astral Projection to Pranic Healing, Angels to Reiki, all topics are welcome.   |
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