I finally got around to getting my hands dirty and looking at the source code for this blog software to make some changes that I've been wanting to do since I started.
Each entry will now be attributed with keywords, on some blogs also known as tags, which list several themes that the entry talks about. So now if you're reading an article I wrote and are interested in seeing other articles in which I mentioned the same topic, just click on the appropriate keyword and the software will generate a list of articles that match.
I'm going to try and develop a list of all the keywords used, and I'll place that somewhere easy to access.
Investigating the paranormal properly, as detailed in Ben Radford's book "Scientific Paranormal Investigation", is not only a good idea in terms of acquiring knowledge. It can also prevent you from doing something so foolish that you get yourself killed.
In a tragic incident this past Friday, a man lost his life while searching for evidence of a "ghost train". Out of a dozen or so companion ghost hunters, he was the only casualty. But it could have easily been worse.
According to urban legends, at the anniversary and place of this historic crash, it's possible to hear the sounds of the crash and catch a glimpse of what happened on that fateful day.
The problem is that the crash took place on a bridge, and the tracks are still subjected to heavy railroad traffic. Our ragtag band of ghost enthusiasts made the very poor decision to walk out onto the bridge in order to try and catch a glimpse of this phenomenon.
Well, there was the sound of a train and people screaming in terror.... but it didn't come from any ghosts.
You can bet that none of these ghost hunters made the slightest effort to look at original sources or figure out exactly what they were looking for. I'm betting they just figured that if they could get as close to the purported scene of the accident as possible, something might happen.
But they had no reason to expect that they'd have a better view of any phenomenon from on the bridge rather than safely next to it. A proper scientific investigation would never involve venturing out onto the bridge when there was no information suggesting that it would do any good.
Hell, good science tries to manage risk and control as many variables as possible, so even if it did look like heading out onto the bridge was necessary it would be imperative to coordinate such efforts with the railroad authorities first.
But these people weren't trying to conduct good scientific investigation. They were just hoping for a ghost experience so that they could have a cheap thrill. That attitude lead to a foolish decision, and the loss of one man's life.
I've been wondering about the kind of management they must have at the History Channel in order to allow those Ancient Aliens documentaries on their airwaves.
This video is probably just about right on the money:
Today I want to talk to you about being abducted by aliens for fun and profit!
This is a fun, tongue-in-cheek book about the flying saucer phenomenon by Professor Solomon available as a free download online. Professor Solomon has figured out the reason that aliens are visiting us and can tell you the best way to enjoy your abduction experience.
And he's set up a live webcam on an alien ship to record his abduction adventure. If you're lucky, maybe you'll catch a glimpse of him cavorting with an alien:
As you know, I've been puzzling for the past few days about what Tsoukalos could have possibly been talking about with that statement on the white paper-like substance.
That in itself should tell you how much of a dumbass I am. A smart person would have just left it as is and wasted no more thought on it. But I've got this compulsion to track things down to their source and figure out exactly where the claims are coming from. And Thoukalos' statement is just begging for somebody to figure it out.
I haven't found the exact source of the quote yet, but I noticed something while looking over yesterday's entry about the forum thread. What I noticed was that I made a mistake when transcribing Tsoukalos' quote.
Tsoukalos actually said that "they wrote on it". I heard "they rode on it", which seemed a little strange, but then that's par for the course in this show.
Once I realized my mistake, something clicked. White paper that they write on in order to generate magical effects.... that sounds like Shinto paper charms, aka Ofuda. These are usually just good luck or protection charms, but in folk tales, as well as anime, they're often used in order to perform magical feats.
Sailor Mars Reporting For Pyramid Building Duty!
My guess is that he's going off of an account of a Shinto folk tale in which an Ofuda was used to move a stone. He says it moved by six feet, which sounds to me like perhaps somebody in the story wanted to move a stone away from a cave entrance or something.
I've been searching for such a story, and have found a few where Ofuda's are used to create a magical effect, but I haven't found anything that looks like it might be Tsoukalos' source yet.
But while I don't know his exact source, I feel confident that this is what he was talking about. This is the same guy, after all, who believed that the tale of King Solomon's flying carpet was actually a reference to an alien airship.
I found Tsoukalos' email address a couple of days ago and asked if he could clarify his statement. I haven't gotten any response back yet. My guess is that even he knows that this claim is weak, and doesn't want to talk about it.
If anybody knows of a folk tale that Tsoukalos could possibly be referring to, write a comment here and let me know.
I've been looking for information about that magical white substance that Giorgio Tsoukalos mentioned. No luck yet, but I did find an interesting thread on the History Channel's online forum from a few months ago.
I love the way it starts out:
I find it hilarious that this was his "only issue" with the show. Apparently, even the believers who accept all the rest of the nonsense that I've been debunking are saying "Hey Tsoukalos... what the hell, man?"
There were some nice skeptical posts in there, which is refreshing to see:
A couple of people mentioned the possibility that the white substance could be something called "monoatomic gold". From what I can gather online, this appears to only be some sort of snake oil alternative medicine product... nothing that would grant anything like levitation abilities.
Nothing else in the thread lead anywhere productive. Although one person interestingly decided to comment on Mr. Tsoukalos' physical appearance:
I'm not sure what he means by that, I thought Mr. Tsoukalos had a perfectly fine hairstyle...
Okay, so it might seem odd to some people.... but I'm sure that's just the result of the aliens beaming this knowledge directly into his brain.
In any case, the final post of the thread reads:
I would have guessed that it had more to do with "special herbs".... but what do I know?
This is a great illustration of how simple techniques can be used to manipulate remarkably heavy stones. In my last blog entry I discussed how it was possible to move incredibly heavy blocks around if you have enough manpower, and it's certainly the case that ancient people made use of vast manpower in order to move large stones.
But here's a man moving incredibly heavy blocks all by himself - and for a finale he raises a close to 9 ton block by himself using nothing but simple tools. I'd like to see those who say that building the pyramids was impossible without alien help respond to this:
This video is particularly funny when you remember the quote by stone sculptor Roger Hopkins:
This stone came off of a
project in Palm Springs, where they had one of the largest excavators
they could rent. They had trouble loading it into the
truck. It's well in excess of five tons, ten thousand
pounds. Small in megalithic terms, but basically what we can
handle with modern
machinery.
Hopkins, your big powerful excavator just got it's ass handed to it by a guy with some rocks and sticks!
My thanks to Narpak from Reddit for calling attention to this remarkable video.
The last three segments dealt mostly with flight, but we're finally moving away from that. Now we're talking about construction techniques, and this is the topic that I see most frequently brought up in support of Ancient Aliens theory by theorists and laypeople alike.
Everybody knows that the pyramids are seriously big-ass buildings, made up of big, heavy stones. Many people wonder, if the ancient Egyptians didn't have modern machinery, how the hell did they do it?
I get a lot of hits to my second Ancient Aliens article by people looking for information on mercury vortex, or mercury gyroscope, engines. In my research I've come across a very interesting webpage of an ancient alien believer who claims to have inside knowledge of mercury vortex technology and how the government is covering it up. I thought it would be interesting to take a little look.
By the way, has anybody ever run into a crank webpage that isn't an example of terrible web design? I mean... a cyan background?? What kind of warped mind would come up with that and think it was a good idea??
It boggles the mind.... but I digress. My purpose in writing today is to tackle the logic and claims made. While these distortions aren't the serious sign of a warped mind that the colour scheme indicates, they're still worth some analysis.
I found his story of how he personally uncovered a government cover-up to be particularly fascinating. I'll tell it here in a nutshell:
Back in February I read an old book of supposedly true tales of the Paranormal called Nightmare Island:
It provided me with some good blog material, such as the title story, and the story of the Ghost Cavalry. It also provided me with an interesting story about a psychic detective that, in spite of having no details I could verify, was at least fun to talk about.
Many of the rest of the tales are even more nebulous than that, and don't have even as much substance to them to warrant a full blog post. So I've decided to pick out a few of them to analyze here:
