Last Hallowe'en I was left here at Signs Central to hold down the fort and produce the Hallowe'en Signs page by myself. That page has become a classic and I received a pile of emails from readers about it. What can I say? It was one of those golden moments in journalism where all the pieces were right to hand, and all I had to do was relax into the flow and write.

This Hallowe'en the Signs Team have asked me if I would write again and I am hard-pressed to think of anything that can top last Hallowe'en's page. However, Hallowe'en Weirdness (as it is wont to do) has certainly begun to weave its spell around the events of the last couple of weeks and maybe - just maybe - I have some Hallowe'en Candy for everyone!

Looking at last year's Signs page, my eye was caught by the following:

Stupid people love Bush

Will Durst
WorkingForChange.com

New study shows correlation between decline of IQ and rise of GOP

"Stupid people love Bush" new study proves According to the prestigious Southern California think tank, The Gluton Group, stupid people prefer President George W Bush over Senator John Kerry by a 4-to-1 margin. As Chief Resident Dr. Louis Friend characterized the results of the research, "the less intelligent you are, the more you like Bush." This landmark study, conducted over a 5 month period, involved 2400 likely voters bridging all economic stratas in the 17 states generally considered up for grabs on November 2nd. Participants were tested for intelligence, then asked to fill out a 12 page series of questions involving the Presidential candidates with results released earlier this week.

The consensus: the higher the IQ, the less people trust Bush and respect the job his administration has done. The lower the IQ, the more people admire his steadfastness. "It was pretty much a slam dunk. There's no nice way to say this. Dumb people like him. They think his unwavering nature is a positive personality trait. They even venerate him for never admitting mistakes, even when he's wrong. On the other hand, smart people think he's a lying bully. I mean, c'mon, you have a deserter accusing a decorated veteran of treason. Who's going to buy that besides stupid people?" [...]

Spotting a trend, Friend cautioned, "Because of the deterioration in public education, larger and larger segments of the population are creeping downward IQ-wise, cementing the hold Republicans have on the electorate."

As it happens, just a little over a week ago we received an email to the site administrator's address as follows:

I don't want to receive any anti-Bush and all Bush voters are stupid stuff... I just want to reach Laura to let her know about a Class Reunion.  We graduated the same year and there is a huge reunion in the planning. [...]   Would love to communicate with her once again.

D****

Well, aside from being rather synchronous in timing, this email reminded me of the last communication I had with the members of my High School class.  It was quite shocking.  For some reason, I had the idea that the people I went to school with were a little better - smarter and with more moral depth - than the rest of the U.S.  And so when I could SEE what was happening in America back in October of 2002, feeling it my duty to alert my generation to the danger the U.S. was facing, (we were, after all, the ones who protested against the Viet Nam war!), I sent out an email (in October, as it happens), to the members of my graduating class as follows:

Subject: Not in Our Name
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 20:46:03 -0400
 http://www.nion.us/

A Statement of Conscience Against War and Repression

Let it not be said that people in the United States did nothing when their government declared a war without limit and instituted stark new measures  of repression.

The signers of this statement call on the people of the U.S. to resist  the policies and overall political direction that have emerged since September  11, 2001, and which pose grave dangers to the people of the world.

We believe that peoples and nations have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers. We believe that all persons detained or prosecuted by the United States government should have  the same rights of due process. We believe that questioning, criticism, and  dissent must be valued and protected. We understand that such rights and values are always contested and must be fought for.

We believe that people of conscience must take responsibility for what  their own governments do -- we must first of all oppose the injustice that is  done in our own name. Thus we call on all Americans to RESIST the war and  repression that has been loosed on the world by the Bush administration. It is unjust, immoral, and illegitimate. We choose to make common cause with the people  of the world.

We too watched with shock the horrific events of September 11, 2001. We too mourned the thousands of innocent dead and shook our heads at the terrible scenes of carnage -- even as we recalled similar scenes in Baghdad, Panama City, and, a generation ago, Vietnam. We too joined the anguished  questioning of millions of Americans who asked why such a thing could happen.

But the mourning had barely begun, when the highest leaders of the land unleashed a spirit of revenge. They put out a simplistic script of "good  vs. evil" that was taken up by a pliant and intimidated media. They told us  that asking why these terrible events had happened verged on treason. There was  to be no debate. There were by definition no valid political or moral  questions. The only possible answer was to be war abroad and repression at home.

In our name, the Bush administration, with near unanimity from Congress,  not only attacked Afghanistan but arrogated to itself and its allies the right  to rain down military force anywhere and anytime. The brutal repercussions  have been felt from the Philippines to Palestine, where Israeli tanks and  bulldozers have left a terrible trail of death and destruction. The government now  openly prepares to wage all-out war on Iraq -- a country which has no connection  to the horror of September 11. What kind of world will this become if the U.S. government has a blank check to drop commandos, assassins, and bombs  wherever it wants?

In our name, within the U.S., the government has created two classes of people: those to whom the basic rights of the U.S. legal system are at  least promised, and those who now seem to have no rights at all. The government rounded up over 1,000 immigrants and detained them in secret and  indefinitely. Hundreds have been deported and hundreds of others still languish today in prison. This smacks of the infamous concentration camps for  Japanese-Americans in World War 2. For the first time in decades, immigration procedures  single out certain nationalities for unequal treatment.

In our name, the government has brought down a pall of repression over society. The President's spokesperson warns people to "watch what they  say." Dissident artists, intellectuals, and professors find their views  distorted, attacked, and suppressed. The so-called Patriot Act -- along with a host of similar measures on the state level -- gives police sweeping new powers of search and seizure, supervised if at all by secret proceedings before  secret courts.

In our name, the executive has steadily usurped the roles and functions  of the other branches of government. Military tribunals with lax rules of evidence  and no right to appeal to the regular courts are put in place by executive  order. Groups are declared "terrorist" at the stroke of a presidential pen.

We must take the highest officers of the land seriously when they talk of  a war that will last a generation and when they speak of a new domestic  order. We are confronting a new openly imperial policy towards the world and a  domestic policy that manufactures and manipulates fear to curtail rights.

There is a deadly trajectory to the events of the past months that must  be seen for what it is and resisted. Too many times in history people have  waited until it was too late to resist.

President Bush has declared: "you're either with us or against us." Here is  our answer: We refuse to allow you to speak for all the American people. We  will not give up our right to question. We will not hand over our consciences in return for a hollow promise of safety. We say NOT IN OUR NAME. We refuse to  be party to these wars and we repudiate any inference that they are being  waged in our name or for our welfare. We extend a hand to those around the world suffering from these policies; we will show our solidarity in word and  deed.

We who sign this statement call on all Americans to join together to rise  to this challenge. We applaud and support the questioning and protest now  going on, even as we recognize the need for much, much more to actually stop this juggernaut. We draw inspiration from the Israeli reservists who, at great personal risk, declare "there IS a limit" and refuse to serve in the  occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

We also draw on the many examples of resistance and conscience from the  past of the United States: from those who fought slavery with rebellions and the underground railroad, to those who defied the Vietnam war by refusing  orders, resisting the draft, and standing in solidarity with resisters.

Let us not allow the watching world today to despair of our silence and  our failure to act. Instead, let the world hear our pledge: we will resist the machinery of war and repression and rally others to do everything possible  to stop it.

Visit and sign the statement and print and mail or fax the following letter  to your congressional representatives.

Dear Representative of my congressional district,

I was going to write you a letter about what a pathetic liar George W, Bush  is - - but then I figured, hey, why waste your time telling you something you already know!

You already know that his planned invasion of Iraq is a ruse meant to  distract the public from the real issues, those issues being the following:

1. The number of people unemployed since he "took" office has risen by 35%.

2. We had a federal SURPLUS of $281 billion when he was inaugurated; today  we have a DEFICIT of $157 billion.

3. TWO MILLION jobs have been eliminated since Bush began his occupation of  the Oval Office.

4. The stock market is down 34% since January of 2001.

5. Another 1.4 million people now have NO health insurance, making it a  total of over 41 million Americans who can't afford to get sick.

6. Only 13 corporate crooks out of HUNDREDS have been indicted, and none of them have been the close personal friends of Mr. Bush.

But, like I said, you already know that. You know that Bush is lying  through his smirk when he says Iraq has "weapons of mass destruction." He has not offered one shred of evidence to prove this. Not one! You know he is lying  when he says that there is a "connection" between Saddam and bin Laden. Even  members of his own administration have admitted that is not true. It's just one lie after another, and I applaud those three congressmen who went to Iraq this  week and told it like it is -- and demanded that the sanctions which have  already killed a half-million Iraqi children be ended. Sen. Trent Lott said "they should come home and keep their mouths shut." I say, we need more damn Democrats with that kind of courage and with mouths like that!

Which brings me to the real point of this letter.

I have never seen a more lame bunch of cowards and appeasers in my life  than you people who are supposed to represent the American public. You are ready  to bow down before Bush and give him what he wants to wage war against Iraq.  This pathetic excuse for a president is humiliating.  And  if you don't stand up  to him, you  are an embarrassment to my state.

  Just look at the state of the union Bush gave us: Bush cronies caught  stealing from the corporate till, Bush and Cheney caught breaking the law in the  '90s, the economy in the toilet, and Bush failing to do the only real job he had  to do since 9/11: Get bin Laden! What a disgrace!  What an appalling excuse  for the government of America.

I will never vote for you again - or for any candidate for public office  -  who has voted in favor of George Bush's war in Iraq.  I will encourage my  friends and neighbors and family members not to vote for you either.  We are  watching you.

There will be NO WAR in my name.  NONE.  ZERO.  ZIP.  ZILCH.

You are either with us, or you are fired.

Signed,

****

Obviously, things have gotten a lot worse since the NIONS group put the above letter together. But anyway, what was on my mind when I sent it out to the members of my graduating class, somehow I thought that the sensible, more intelligent, more HUMAN, people I had gone to school with would immediately see what I was seeing and would say "Yes!  We see it too!  We are true Patriots and we will stand against King George and his Fourth Reich!"

But that isn't what happened.  Instead, there were only two replies sent to that esteemed group of colleagues.  The first one:

From: "v p" <mafiawiseguy@****>

who in their right mind would take this hate mail serious ?
get serious be american not a whining small minded liberal sheep.
You got the wrong person here .America comes first with me!!

I actually didn't recognize this individual as being a member of the class, but who knows? The second reply came with an interesting line in the subject field and no response:

"P.M. Valdon" <bisoncountry@*****>
Subject:          You ANTI-AMerican TRASH, STOP the STAM & Love your COUNTY!

Well, so much for the "more intelligent" description.  "STAM"? and "COUNTY"?  Miss Thompson and Miss McCurdy must be spinning in their graves.

Three years have gone by and we now have I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby indicted for his part in trying to "fix the intelligence" to support an illegal war and that is only the tip of the tip of the iceberg of deception.  With Cenk Uygur, I ask "What have we become?":

The Real Indictment of Dick Cheney

The Vice President of the United States is actively lobbying for torture right now. Not in the 1800's. Not in the 1950's. Right now. And the sick thing is -- he has an excellent chance of winning.

We look back at things like the McCarthy Hearings or Japanese internment camps and shake our heads in disbelief.

Can you believe what happened in America back then? After seeing what's happening right now, the answer is -- absolutely, I see exactly how it happened.

There is a defense spending bill that is in conference committee right now with an amendment attached to it that says the US must follow the Army Field Manual when dealing with detainees and must not treat people it captures with "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Can you imagine anything less debatable?

Of course, we are now debating it. And we might lose. The Vice President went down personally to the Senate to try to kill this amendment earlier in the process. The Senate showed rare courage and independence by voting against him 90-9. The nine Senators who voted in favor of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" should never be allowed to walk into our Congress again. They soil the ground they walk on. That is hallowed ground. All those patriots didn't die so these men could say America stands for darkness.

These men are traitors to the idea and principles of America. And now one of them is leading the conference committee that will decide whether the amendment will be in the final bill. Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens (R-Alaska) is one of the Republicans who voted for torture and he is charged with representing the Senate on this bill. Of course, the House has already voiced their opinion in favor of torture (there was no formal vote in the House, but their representatives are lobbying to kill the amendment in conference).

As I write this, I think, what kind of a world do we live in? What have we become?

I still can't believe this is the America I love and cherish. The America that was supposed to bring freedom and enlightenment to the rest of the world. The beacon of light.

I continue ... the President has threatened to veto the entire defense spending bill if he is not allowed to continue torturing people. Just yesterday there was another report of at least 21 homicides of detainees under our supervision. We beat and strangled some of these people to death.

I guess this is the type of thing Rush Limbaugh would call a frat house prank.

What have we become?

The House and the Senate are trying to decide whether we should continue to torture people or leave bad enough alone. The thought of holding the people who ordered and condoned these actions accountable hasn't even crossed anyone's mind yet.

How can this administration argue that it was a few rogue soldiers who committed the abuses at Abu Ghraib (and all of the other prisons all over Iraq and Afghanistan), when they are arguing for the right to treat detainees with "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" right now?

These are the people who said they were going to bring dignity and morality back into the White House. I know a lot of people voted for this President because they thought he is a good Christian, just like them. Let me ask you, is this what Christianity is all about? Do good Christians argue for cruelty, degradation and inhumanity?

Either Christianity is twisted or Bush has twisted Christianity. Either way, if you claim to be a moral person proud of being a Christian, stand up against this barbarity or never speak of morality again.

This is not some long past error that is too late to correct. The final vote on this bill still hasn't taken place. We can make a difference. We can stand up for the real America.

Or we can admit to ourselves that we have become a country of cruel and degrading inhumanity -- a country of torturers. Jesus, what have we become?

What, indeed, have we become?

Needless to say, I won't be going to the class reunion.  As Thoreau said:

"Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." 

Or, as in my case, exile.

The exchange with my classmates drove home the point to me that the people of the United States were as blind and uncomprehending as the citizens of Nazi Germany had been. I wasn't Cindy Sheehan, a woman who woke up when she lost her beloved son. I was already awake and I had no intention of losing mine. I knew I could not continue to live and support what the U.S. had become.  I also knew I had to continue to speak out against this darkness creeping over our world. Work to do. As Cenk says above: "If you claim to be a moral person ... stand up against this barbarity or never speak of morality again."

And that is what our website is about: REAL morality, REAL conscience which is born of consciousness. As Gurdjieff said:

"In ordinary life the concept 'conscience' is taken too simply. As if we had a conscience. Actually the concept 'conscience' in the sphere of the emotions is equivalent to the concept 'consciousness' in the sphere of the intellect. And as we have no consciousness we have no conscience.

"Consciousness is a state in which a man knows all at once everything that he in general knows and in which he can see how little he does know and how many contradictions there are in what he knows.

"Conscience is a state in which a man feels all at once everything that he in general feels, or can feel. And as everyone has within him thousands of contradictory feelings which vary from a deeply hidden realization of his own nothingness and fears of all kinds to the most stupid kind of self-conceit, self-confidence, self-satisfaction, and self-praise, to feel all this together would not only be painful but literally unbearable.

"If a man whose entire inner world is composed of contradictions were suddenly to feel all these contradictions simultaneously within himself, if he were to feel all at once that he loves everything he hates and hates everything he loves; that he lies when he tells the truth and that he tells the truth when he lies; and if he could feel the shame and horror of it all, this would be the state which is called 'conscience. A man cannot live in this state; he must either destroy contradictions or destroy conscience. He cannot destroy conscience, but if he cannot destroy it he can put it to sleep, that is, he can separate by impenetrable barriers one feeling of self from another, never see them together, never feel their incompatibility, the absurdity of one existing alongside another.

"But fortunately for man, that is, for his peace and for his sleep, this state of conscience is very rare. From early childhood 'buffers' begin to grow and strengthen in him, taking from him the possibility of seeing his inner contradictions and therefore, for him, there is no danger whatever of a sudden awakening. Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it. For this it is necessary to destroy 'buffers,' that is, to go out to meet all those inner sufferings which are connected with the sensations of contradictions. Moreover the destruction of 'buffers' in itself requires very long work and a man must agree to this work realizing that the result of his work will be every possible discomfort and suffering from the awakening of his conscience.

"But conscience is the fire which alone can fuse all the powders in the glass retort which was mentioned before and create the unity which a man lacks in that state in which he begins to study himself.

"The concept 'conscience' has nothing in common with the concept 'morality.'

"Conscience is a general and a permanent phenomenon. Conscience is the same for all men and conscience is possible only in the absence of 'buffers. [...]

"There is nothing general in the concept of 'morality.' Morality consists of buffers. There is no general morality. What is moral in China is immoral in Europe and what is moral in Europe is immoral in China. What is moral in Petersburg is immoral in the Caucasus. And what is moral in the Caucasus is immoral in Petersburg. What is moral in one class of society is immoral in another and vice versa. Morality is always and everywhere an artificial phenomenon. It consists of various 'taboos,' that is, restrictions, and various demands, sometimes sensible in their basis and sometimes having lost all meaning or never even having had any meaning, and having been created on a false basis, on a soil of superstition and false fears. [...]

"A morality common to all does not exist. It is even impossible to say that there exists any general idea of morality, for instance, in Europe. It is said sometimes that the general morality for Europe is 'Christian morality.' But first of all the idea of 'Christian morality' itself admits of very many different interpretations and many different crimes have been justified by 'Christian morality.' And in the second place modern Europe has very little in common with 'Christian morality,' no matter how we understand this morality.

"In any case, if 'Christian morality' brought Europe to the war which is now going on, then it would be as well to be as far as possible from such morality."

"Many people say that they do not understand the moral side of your teaching," said one of us. "And others say that your teaching has no morality at all."

"Of course not," said G. "People are very fond of talking about morality. But morality is merely self-suggestion. What is necessary is conscience. We do not teach morality. We teach how to find conscience. People are not pleased when we say this. They say that we have no love. Simply because we do not encourage weakness and hypocrisy but, on the contrary, take off all masks. He who desires the truth will not speak of love or of Christianity because he knows how far he is from these. [...]

"Morality and conscience are quite different things. One conscience can never contradict another conscience. One morality can always very easily contradict and completely deny another. A man with 'buffers' may be very moral. And 'buffers' can be very different, that is, two very moral men may consider each other very immoral. As a rule it is almost inevitably so. The more 'moral' a man is, the more 'immoral' does he think other moral people.

"The idea of morality is connected with the idea of good and evil conduct. But the idea of good and evil is always different for different people, always subjective in man number one, number two, and number three, and is connected only with a given moment or a given situation. A subjective man can have no general concept of good and evil. For a subjective man evil is everything that is opposed to his desires or interests or to his conception of good.

"One may say that evil does not exist for subjective man at all, that there exist only different conceptions of good. Nobody ever does anything deliberately in the interests of evil, for the sake of evil. Everybody acts in the interests of good, as he understands it. But everybody understands it in a different way. Consequently men drown, slay, and kill one another in the interests of good. The reason is again just the same, men's ignorance and the deep sleep in which they live.

"This is so obvious that it even seems strange that people have never thought of it before. However, the fact remains that they fail to understand this and everyone considers his good as the only good and all the rest as evil. It is naive and useless to hope that men will ever understand this and that they will evolve a general and identical idea of good."

"But do not good and evil exist in themselves apart from man?" asked someone present.

"A permanent idea of good and evil can be formed in man only in connection with a permanent aim and a permanent understanding. If a man understands that he is asleep and if he wishes to awake, then everything that helps him to awake will be good and everything that hinders him, everything that prolongs his sleep, will be evil. Exactly in the same way will he understand what is good and evil for other people. What helps them to awake is good, what hinders them is evil. But this is so only for those who want to awake, that is, for those who understand that they are asleep. Those who do not understand that they are asleep and those who can have no wish to awake, cannot have understanding of good and evil. And as the overwhelming majority of people do not realize and will never realize that they are asleep, neither good nor evil can actually exist for them. [P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of The Miraculous]

When I first began putting my work and research on the web I thought that it would be only natural to speak from the perspective of "channeling." After all, after over 35 years of work and research, I had finally come to the idea of my own "experiment" in channeling that was going to be significantly different from other such "events" because I found most of what was out there as "channeled" material to be little more than nonsensical word-salad. So, yeah, let me have a "channeling" website! Let me "speak" to those people who are interested in "channeled" information, who are open to the miraculous, who are searching for answers too.

Well, that obviously wasn't going to work. No one can present information that is so different, that flouts the conventions of all the "warm and cozy beliefs", without arousing hostility.

And indeed, hostility was aroused.

All sorts of things have been said about me, similar to the things that were said about Gurdjieff. I have been accused of hypnotizing "followers" and fleecing them, that I am trying to start a "cult", that I am controlled by Satan, that I am unscrupulous, psychotic, and so on. So, let me make this clear once and for all: Exactly as Gurdjieff said:

If a man understands that he is asleep and if he wishes to awake, then everything that helps him to awake will be good and everything that hinders him, everything that prolongs his sleep, will be evil.

And, exactly as Gurdjieff was, I am utterly devoted to carrying out my mission which is to expose, without pity, all that stands in the way of man's spiritual development.

And so, having seen that the people that I thought most likely to benefit from the results of a lifetime of concentrated work and effort were simply looking for another belief system, another blanket of lies to keep them warm when the cold wind of reality rattled the doors and windows, I struggled with the problem of finding the right approach. The website has changed throughout this period, changed in emphasis and direction, but never has it changed its goal: to Awaken the reader, to give them the tools to expand their consciousness and thus, to awaken True Conscience.

Recently we received an entry to our discussion forum as follows:

I'm rather new to this website. I have read The Wave series, Psychopath stuff & as much of everything else that is available, so I am perplexed by the SOTT section. While, yes, it is interesting to note the global state of affairs & the continuing erosion of our governments, freedoms, the wars, etc. etc. etc., but how much of this is truly "news". Isn't the fact of 4th density STS worldwide manipulation well established? Why is everyone so horrified, nauseated, SURPRISED by all of the aforementioned events? In focusing on all of the "alternative news" in this section, are we neglecting to tend to our spiritual progression? I think that people need to be careful of putting too much of their attentions & energies on everything that is happening worldwide. I believe, that if you really know & believe that we are truly food for 4th density STS's that we would not find this alternative news, or the very necessity for alternative news, to be at all surprising or worthy of a second glance. It is merely a fact & the main bulk of our time & energy would be more profitably spend in attending to our spiritual alignment. I am sure that many of you will take exception to what I am saying and that's okay with me. I am not going to waste my time or attention on your opinions or to engage in endless debate on those matters. I just wish to say that I will continue to enjoy the rest of the website & no longer bother to view the SOTT section. It feels like way too much of an energy drain to me.

We get that sort of thing from the New Age types all the time. What is always astonishing is to read that TRUTH is invariably referred to as an "energy drain." Notice also that Michelle, above, remarks: "Isn't the fact of 4th density STS worldwide manipulation well established?"

Of course it isn't. Obviously, her ignorance of the true state of the beliefs of human beings on the planet makes her complacent and satisfied to just turn her attention to her "spiritual progression" and to Hell with everybody and everything else. She says, with equal snobbery:

"It is merely a fact & the main bulk of our time & energy would be more profitably spend in attending to our spiritual alignment.... I am not going to waste my time or attention on your opinions or to engage in endless debate on those matters."

I, on the other hand, am very interested in other human beings and whether or not they truly have the opportunity offered to them to awaken. And it just so happens that the idea of hyperdimensional manipulations is NOT common currency. The vast majority of humanity is still asleep in standard religious dogma or "scientific materialism." And, as Cenk says above, I will address Michelle: "[I]f you claim to be a moral person proud of being [spiritually advanced], stand up against this barbarity or never speak of morality again."

And I say also to Michelle and all those like her: stand up again, and again and again; day after day; when you are tired and sick and miserable from looking at it yourself, (because, of course, YOU know it), but you also know that there are millions, billions of others who do NOT know it, who may never know it if the struggle to expose, without pity, all that stands in the way of man's spiritual development is not carried on with dedication until it is no longer possible to speak.

Anyway, speaking of Hallowe'en and "channeled" material, a QFG member shared the following a few days ago:

Questioner: Bashar, you said something about Halloween being connected to the destruction of Atlantis?

Bashar: Yes, from your ancient times, All Hallows Eve, or Halloween, represents the day before the destruction of Atlantis. November 1 is the day of destruction, and November 2 is the day after. In some of your religious vernacular these days translate into All Hallows Eve, All Souls Day and All Saints Day, and are the idea of the destruction of your Atlantean land mass approximately 11 to 12 thousand years ago.

As it happens, I had read this very thing many, many years ago in the readings of Edgar Cayce. In reading number 2990-2 he remarks "...Halloween or November 1st is the anniversary of Noah's Flood!"

This brings me in an indirect way to another item that has recently caught my attention.

There is a really "regular guy" named David McGowan who has a not so regular website. Well, actually, he DOES have a part of his website that is quite "normal," but another part that is not what your usual contractor-Joe-Six-Pack would create. Dave has created The Center for an Informed America.

Dave probably isn't into "channeling" or anything weird like that. But, Dave has a "nose" for things and he can not only present things with impeccable logic, he can do it entertainingly. If you haven't read his newsletters, you are missing a serious source of information and insight. He's a great journalist, in my opinion.

But again, Dave isn't into High Strangeness at all as far as I can tell. And that is exactly what makes his views so valuable to me. If Dave is seeing things from the normal, entirely human, point of view, and that view confirms something that is "channeled," then those are two data points that create what I like to call "horizontal" evidence.

In his most recent newsletter, Dave launches his discussion of evidence collected here and there with the subject of Hurricane Katrina.

Katrina, Eugenics and 'Peak Oil'

So ... I thought that I'd try the old "fake my death and boost sales" charade, 'cause I heard that it worked great for the Beatles back in the '60s, but it hasn't worked out all that well for me, to tell you the truth, which is why, for better or worse, I'm back. Did anyone miss me?

I have a lot of catching up to do, so much so that I don't really know where to begin, but I guess I'll start with the following brief news story, which I happened to stumble upon while digging deep within a recent edition of the Los Angeles Times:

KATRINA'S AFTERMATH

Cuban Hurricane Preparation Offers Lessons in Organization

Los Angeles Times
September 10, 2005; Page A30

HAVANA - Cubans have no Astrodome or cruise ships to house evacuees, and meals-ready-to-eat usually consist of rice and beans. But they have weathered some of the most violent storms the tropics can churn up, with surprisingly low death tolls and almost perfect compliance with evacuation orders.

Last year, United Nations emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland singled out Cuba for praise among Caribbean nations for hurricane evacuation planning. When Hurricane Ivan swiped the island last September, for example, Cuba didn't record a single death, but 115 people died regionally. The same month, Hurricane Jeanne killed more than 1,500 in Haiti, many drowning in floodwaters.

Now, as analysts and politicians examine how the U.S. government responded to Hurricane Katrina - and how to avoid a similar catastrophe - some say this communist island may offer a few lessons.

Cuban evacuations are mostly carried out by community groups that take cues from the government. The military assists, unarmed. "Cuba views hurricanes as a top national security priority, and they know the drill," said Daniel P. Erikson, Caribbean specialist at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. The storms not only imperil lives, he said, but threaten Cuba's economic underpinnings: agriculture and tourism. "The drill" Erikson refers to includes yearly military exercises across the island, with two-day training sessions for emergency workers, simulated evacuations and reviews of emergency plans. During hurricanes, Cuba's four state-run television stations run nonstop evacuation orders and weather reports. The coverage is anchored by President Fidel Castro, who coordinates response during live broadcasts as if waging battle against an invading army.

"It's an organized system, in a pyramid structure," said Dr. Gabriel Diaz Ramirez, a Cuban pediatrician dispatched to Indonesia this year to treat tsunami survivors. "We have our government's support."

Perhaps the most striking element of Cuba's disaster preparedness is that most residents obey evacuation orders without question. The government says it evacuated 1.5 million people in July ahead of Hurricane Dennis. Most went to safe zones, and 245,000 flocked to state-run shelters. This contrasts starkly with New Orleans, where thousands decided to ride out the storm and were later plucked from flooded attics or perished. Others are still refusing to leave, even with toxic muck on the streets and armed forces moving in to carry out mandatory evacuations.

Erikson suggested that the smooth displacements were a product of the government's tight control over residents. "It's still a police state," he said. "You could say one advantage they may have is the ability to move large numbers of people in a short amount of time. "But of course the political environment in Cuba makes it difficult to resist those kinds of orders."

Stupid fucking Commies! Can you imagine a government actually demonstrating concern for the health and safety of the people? What are they thinking over there? And what is this business of sending in the military unarmed, as if they were being sent in to do some sort of humanitarian work? How in the hell are you going to issue shoot-to-kill orders if your relief workers aren't even packing heat? Those pinkoes are just so damn backwards in their thinking. I mean, who the hell relies on "community groups" when you can just get on the phone and call in some professional mercenaries? (Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans) Come to think of it, I bet they don't even have any 'private' paramilitary outfits in Cuba. They do though have an awful lot of medical doctors. So many that they offered to send over a veritable army of 1,100 of them to tend to the victims of Katrina. The Bush administration, however, realizing that the presence of swarms of qualified medical personnel could negatively impact their denegrofication project, declined the offer.

The writer and editor of the L.A. Times piece, after consulting their trusty copy of "Orwell for Dummies," concluded that Cuba is better at responding to disasters because "it's still a police state." But that much is rather obvious, since, as any fool knows, a "police state" is one that responds to natural disasters by sending in actual relief workers, while a "democracy" generally responds to natural disasters by militarily occupying the zone of destruction and criminalizing the survivors. Most of you probably remember learning all that stuff back in your Civics classes.

There is, of course, an alternative explanation for why the Cuban people willingly follow evacuation orders while the residents of New Orleans were reluctant to do so. Granted, the alternative explanation lacks the disconnection from reality so clearly on display in the Times article, but we should probably give it some consideration nonetheless, so here it is: the Cuban people know that after the danger has passed, they will actually be allowed to return to their homes!

The people of New Orleans, on the other hand, had good reason to fear that they would not.

It is painfully obvious that many of the former residents of New Orleans will never be going home. Many did not survive, though we will never know the true number since it was apparent from early on that the death toll would be covered up. Of those who did survive, many have seen the last of their family homes. Residents of New Orleans probably didn't realize it at the time, but the stage was set two months before Katrina came ashore, on June 23, 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, decreed that it was well within the 'rule of law' for the government to seize what is ostensibly privately held land so that that land can then be passed into the grubby, bloody hands of developers.

The stage was actually set earlier than that, in April 2005, when the United States Congress, in its infinite wisdom, opted to pass some bankruptcy 'reform' legislation. I'll defer to the L.A. Times once again for an explanation of exactly how that 'reform' will come into play:

After virtually every major hurricane of the last 25 years, bankruptcy filings have grown significantly faster than usual as victims sought to shake off old debts in order to rebuild their economically ruined lives.

But unless changes are made to an overhaul of the nation's bankruptcy law due to kick in next month, many of those affected by Hurricane Katrina and the resulting floods will have a substantially harder time winning court relief from loans they incurred for homes and businesses that are now gone, according to a variety of judges, lawyers and policy experts.

"Just because your house or car is somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico doesn't mean that your auto loan or mortgage went with it," said Brady C. Williamson, who was appointed by President Clinton to head a national bankruptcy commission in the mid-1990s. (Peter Gosselin "New Bankruptcy Law Could Exact a Toll on Storm Victims," Los Angeles Times, September 7, 2005)

Imagine, if you will, this purely – ahem – 'hypothetical' scenario (which, as we all know, could never happen in the land of the free and home of the brave): under the pretense that conditions are far too dangerous for you to stay, you and your family are forced from your family home by heavily armed troops. You are then shipped off, against your will, to some distant, unspecified location, where your actions are monitored lest you decide to do something crazy, such as attempting to return to what you, quite foolishly, still think of as your home. That home, meanwhile, is condemned and quickly bulldozed, though the actual damage to the property was quite minimal. The ground that your house used to stand on is seized by the government and will soon serve as the home of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at the new Disneyland New Orleans®. Having been stripped of everything that you once called your own – including your home and all its furnishings, the land it stood on, your vehicle(s), and your job – and having been separated from your friends and neighbors, you are now faced with the daunting prospect of completely rebuilding your life with little to work with other than a mountain of debt, which, you are quickly assured, you will be required to pay back. And guess what? This month's payments are already past due.

If you were ever to find yourself in this 'hypothetical' predicament, which of the following would best describe your situation? (a) I live in some sort of hellish, Kafkaesque police state; (b) I live in the world's greatest democracy; or (c) I'm Caucasian, so this doesn't really apply to me – yet.

I have to admit that I am quite impressed at the amazing foresight displayed by the Washington gang in getting these new and vastly improved interpretations of "bankruptcy" and "eminent domain" on the books just in time to serve the needs of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. And I am also quite impressed with Washington's propaganda unit, otherwise known as "Hollywood," which continues to demonstrate an uncanny ability to serve up "product" that offers commentary on ongoing events, despite the fact that that product was filmed long before the events even took place.

Consider, for example, the new television series "Invasion," which debuted on September 21, just a few short weeks after the flooding of New Orleans, and just three days before Rita came ashore. Two curious facts about this new show stood out even before the first episode aired: (1) ABC chose to premier it along with the rest of its slate of new Fall shows even though it was obviously in very poor taste to do so; and (2) there was not a whimper of protest from any avenue of the media over that decision.

For those who have not seen "Invasion" (and you are all excused for that oversight, since the series, shockingly enough, sucks), it concerns the rather strange goings-on in the aftermath of – are you ready for this? – a Gulf Coast hurricane. Prominently featured on the program are frequent allusions to governmental cover-ups. The hurricane that kicked off the series, you see, was apparently not your run-of-the-mill hurricane. According to one character on the show – a character who, as custom dictates, is portrayed as a paranoid 'conspiracy theorist' with a fondness for aliens – the hurricane was actually an elaborate "cover for a military operation." [...]

Despite being a mediocre show at best, "Invasion" has received rave reviews from many supposed critics. The fact that the show is on the air at all, despite the obvious insensitivity shown to the tens of thousands of victims of Katrina and Rita, coupled with the fact that it is actually being praised, rather than questioned, would seem to indicate that some powerful folks in the Washington/Hollywood axis feel that it is important that "Invasion" be seen by the viewing public.

And that, of course, raises the obvious question: why is it important that this show be seen? My guess is that it is probably because at the very time when people of conscience should be asking questions not too dissimilar from those raised in "Invasion," Hollywood has already, in its inimitable style, proactively relegated such concerns to the world of television fantasies. And, of course, thrown a bunch of aliens into the mix. Can anal probes be far behind? [...]

Let's assume, for the sake of argument - and because you wouldn't be visiting this website if you weren't seeking out 'conspiracy theories' - that everything that happened in post-Katrina New Orleans happened because powerful actors wanted it to happen: the breaching of the levees, the flooding of selected portions of the city, the suppression of any and all relief efforts, the establishment of a pretext for a military response through the introduction of fraudulent 'news' stories, and the relocation by force of the residents of New Orleans. What then would be the motivation for these actions? I can think of at least three motives:

1. To acclimate the American people to the presence of armed troops on American soil, which will soon be a familiar sight not just in southern Louisiana, but throughout the country. Even as you read this, the White House and Congress are hard at work drafting legislation and executive orders that will normalize the use of combat personnel to deal with any contrived situation.

2.  To allow the city of New Orleans to be rebuilt and refashioned into what our fearless leaders no doubt see as a city of the future - a city that is much richer, and much whiter, than the city that stood before.

3.  To solidify control over the Gulf Coast oil and gas industry, since a key goal of the perpetrators of the 'Peak Oil' charade, as I've noted before, is to achieve total control over all the world's major oil and gas taps.

Speaking of 'Peak Oil,' my mailbox runneth over with inquiries concerning the scam. I suppose that is because the issue is getting a little hard to ignore, what with it popping up all over the mainstream media these days. I know this because I subscribe to only a handful of mainstream publications and every one of them have now promoted the 'Peak' lies. The cover of the August edition of National Geographic, for instance, reads: "After Oil; Powering the Future." The cover of October's Esquire reads, charmingly enough: "The End of Oil (& Life As We Know It); A Handy Guide."

Yes, friends, thanks to the tireless efforts of Mike Ruppert and company, the mainstream media have now been forced to acknowledge the 'reality' of 'Peak Oil.' That is, after all, the way that things generally work -- the truth first emerges in the fringes of the 'alternative' media, and then, within a few short years, through the hard and thankless work of dedicated researchers, some of whom might not even come from CIA families, their ideas gain mainstream acceptance. That is precisely why mainstream commentators and publications are now okay with, for example, spilling the beans on 9-11. And the sham election of 2000. And 2002. And 2004. And the war crimes being committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the rampant criminality of the Bush regime, on both the domestic and international fronts. And Paul Wellstone's plane 'crash.' And (insert the scandal of your choice here; I'm bored with it already).

Maybe we don't even need an 'alternative' media. We can just wait a couple of years for the real stories to seep into the mainstream. True, we'll always be lagging a little behind, but I'm the kind of guy who always waits for movies to come out on DVD before seeing them, so I'm kind of used to lagging a little behind. And to be perfectly honest, I usually feel ripped-off even at the DVD rental price, although that really has nothing to do with the current discussion.

By the way, since the Peakers in the 'alternative' media insist on taking credit for every 'Peak' story that appears in the mainstream, then I suppose that I will have to take full credit for an article by Sonia Shaw entitled "The Strange Heresies of Thomas Gold," appearing in the November issue of Playboy. Shaw's piece makes for interesting reading, particularly the discussion of how research that has supported Gold's theories on oil has never been published. But here I digress yet again.

What I really wanted to talk about was when I offended the 'Peak Oil' crowd by reporting that their real agenda was selling the necessity of a massive 'population reduction.' Remember that? Remember how all the Peakers got their panties in a wad and accused me of putting words in the mouth of their great and fearless cult leader, The Honorable Michael Ruppert? And remember how they nearly went into convulsions when I described their 'solution' to the alleged problem as a eugenics program, because, of course, no one in the 'Peak' movement advocated any such thing?

Well ... it appears that it is time to revisit that issue, even at the considerable risk of further offending the delicate sensibilities of the craven 'Peak Oil' proponents. This time, however, I won't be putting words in anyone's mouth. No, this time I will be quoting directly from a newsletter penned by the great Colin Campbell*, founding father of ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil) and guiding light of folks like Ruppert, Heinberg and Pfeiffer. Without further ado then, let's hear what Dr. Campbell had to say this past July (with my own comments added in blue, and with a shout-out to Ty Brown for directing my attention to this post):

[Oil and People Important Notice: This is a plain text article extracted from Dr Colin Campbell's ASPO Newlsetter 55 (July 2005). [...] First published July 2005; article no. 573]

Recent articles in the ASPO Newsletter have agreed that the explosion of world population from about 0.6 billion in 1750 to 6.4 billion today was initiated and sustained by the shift from renewable energy to fossil fuel (sic) energy in the Industrial Revolution. There is agreement that the progressive exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves will reverse the process, though there is uncertainty as to what a sustainable global population would be.

... a global population reduction of some 6 billion people is likely to take place during the 21st Century

(For the mathematically impaired, Campbell is talking about no less than a 94% reduction in the world's population. If you feel that you and all of your loved ones are among the lucky 6% who will be spared, then I suppose there is no cause for alarm and you can feel free to stop reading now.)

... probably before 2010 ... uncontrollable inflation and recession will spread round the world ...

(Probably so, but this will be, of course, a deliberately induced condition.)

In Third World nations ... a Darwinian struggle for shrinking resources of all kinds will be in full swing ... the imperative to survive will be driving strong groups to take what they want from weak ones. The concept of human rights will be irrelevant ...

It may well be that, in the West, the same argument will affect the thinking of militarily powerful nations ... Instantaneous nuclear elimination of population centres might even be considered merciful, compared to starvation and massacres prolonged over decades.

(You have to applaud Campbell's effort here; I doubt that even Orwell could have conceived of the concept of a humanitarian nuclear holocaust.) Eventually, probably before 2150, world population will have fallen to a level that renewable energy, mainly biomass, can sustain ...

Probably the greatest obstacle to the scenario with the best chance of success (in my opinion) is the Western world's unintelligent devotion to political correctness, human rights and the sanctity of human life. In the Darwinian world that preceded and will follow the fossil fuel era, these concepts were and will be meaningless. Survival in a Darwinian resource-poor world depends on the ruthless elimination of rivals, not the acquisition of moral kudos by cherishing them when they are weak.

(Hmmm ... overt calls for the destruction of the weak by the strong? ... now, where have I heard that before? ... Adolf Hitler? Aleister Crowley? I can't quite place it ...)

So the population reduction scenario with the best chance of success has to be Darwinian in all its aspects, with none of the sentimentality that shrouded the second half of the 20th Century in a dense fog of political correctness ...

To those sentimentalists who ... are outraged at the proposed replacement of human rights by cold logic, I would say "You have had your day, in which your woolly thinking has messed up not just the Western world but the whole planet, which could, if Homo sapiens had been truly intelligent, have supported a small population enjoying a wonderful quality of life almost for ever. You have thrown away that opportunity."

... The scenario is: Immigration is banned. Unauthorised arrivals are treated as criminals. Every woman is entitled to raise one healthy child. No religious or cultural exceptions can be made, but entitlements can be traded. Abortion or infanticide is compulsory if the fetus or baby proves to be handicapped (Darwinian selection weeds out the unfit). When, through old age, accident or disease, an individual becomes more of a burden than a benefit to society, his or her life is humanely ended. Voluntary euthanasia is legal and made easy. Imprisonment is rare, replaced by corporal punishment for lesser offences and painless capital punishment for greater.

... The punishment regime would improve social cohesiveness by weeding out criminal elements.

... military forces should be maintained strong and alert ... Collaboration with other nations practising the same population reduction scenario would be of great mutual advantage. [Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, Ireland]

I have to admit that Campbell did not once, throughout his entire rant, use the word "eugenics." But what he has described here - the destruction of the "weak," the "unfit," the sick and the elderly, the "handicapped," the "burdens" to society, and, of course, the "criminal elements" - is nothing short of a eugenicist's wet dream. The frequent references to Darwin, I have to say, are a nice touch as well.

I would hope that I don't have to point out here that it will be the all-powerful state that will decide who is a "burden" and who is a "benefit" to society, and who is "unfit," and what is and what isn't a "handicap," and who is too old, injured or diseased to go on, and what crimes are punishable by death. The good news, of course, is that the wealthy will be able to produce as many children as they desire, since the rest of us will likely be forced to barter away the only thing we will have left that will be of any value: our child "entitlement."

Some of you are no doubt wondering what sort of complex formulas will be used to determine who stays and who goes when the Great Die-Off rolls through town. It's not really as mysterious as it seems. Basically, it will work something like this: you know how in virtually every country on the planet there is a very small percentage of the people - usually around five or six percent - who seem to control the overwhelming majority of that country's wealth? Those will be the 'keepers.' And everyone else? Well, maybe you better sit down, because I have some bad news for you ...

I should probably point out here that when Campbell speaks of "weeding out criminal elements," he is really rather coyly referring to people that happen to have more pigment in their skin than he does. We know this because former Education Secretary and 'Drug Czar' William Bennett, who apparently gets his 'talking points' from the same folks as Colin Campbell, spelled it out pretty clearly on his radio show recently:

I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could - if that were your sole purpose - you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.

It's hard to say what is more remarkable about that statement - that someone with a relatively prominent voice in the media can casually discuss genocide without stirring up a firestorm of protest, or that someone from the religious right who is not averse to equating abortion with murder could nevertheless tacitly endorse forced abortion on a grand scale, so long as the program is targeting a 'criminal race.'

The bleating of Campbell and Bennett, and the actions taken in New Orleans, are not unrelated events. To conclude otherwise would be rather foolish. What we saw in New Orleans was a glimpse into the near future. And it was likely a relatively tame glimpse at that. An overtly military form of rule, ethnic cleansing, population reduction, the restructuring and rebuilding of major population centers, total control of vital resources, and the craven exploitation of disasters, both natural and unnatural - all of this and more is just around the corner.

Perhaps you are thinking that this type of future is not for you. You'd really prefer something a little different. That's unfortunate, because the future holds very few options. Here's Campbell again, concluding his mini version of Mein Kampf:

Another problem is likely to be the residual opposition to population reduction from sentimentalists and/or religious extremists unable to understand that the days of plenty, when criminals and the weak could be cherished at public expense, are over. Acts of violent protest, such as are carried out today by animal rights activists and anti-abortionists, would, in the Darwinian world, attract capital punishment. Population reduction must be single-minded to succeed.

So it appears as though those who fight back against the agenda will likely be summarily executed, while those who passively go with the flow stand about a 95% chance of being killed off anyway. With odds like that, I would think that fighting back might be a good idea. By any means available. And sooner rather than later.

Dave's note added later: Several readers have written to inform me that the ASPO post quoted in Newsletter #74  was actually penned by someone named William Stanton, not Colin Campbell. Authorship of the piece was rather ambiguous in the post that I read and linked to, but I nevertheless apologize for the error. However, as editor of the newsletter and head honcho of the ASPO organization, it is Campbell who is ultimately accountable for the rants that appear under his organization's banner. And I have been informed that numerous people have appealed to Campbell to disown the post and he has refused to drop his tacit backing for the ideas expressed therein. I'm glad we cleared that up.

94% starting in 2010, eh? Where have we heard that before? Aside from the fact that I stumbled across these ideas while writing the Adventures Series... ?

Well, let's go back to the channeling experiment. Keep in mind that my idea of channeling is not the usual perspective. As I have written in the introduction to the Cassiopaea pages:

After years of working with people's heads via hypnotherapy, I didn't much care whether such things as "past lives" actually existed or not. I only cared that the therapeutic modality worked and gave people relief. My own theory was that it gave them a drama to explain things, to work things out; a way to achieve a resolution by changing the script of the drama. Same with "spirit release therapy." I incorporated that process in a couple of cases where nothing else worked in the late 80s. I was quite astonished at the results (and was very careful to not contaminate my subjects), and wondered just what the heck was going on? Again, I just explained it to myself that it was a self-created drama that allowed the person to sort themselves out. It didn't matter to me; I wasn't invested in believing any of it. I only cared that it relieved suffering. And it did, every time. It was even a rather simple formulaic process which is why I was so surprised that it worked. Could it be that easy?

My working hypothesis at the time, considering the boring regularity with which subjects from all walks of life came up with the same images, the same types of dramas, the same dynamics in the subconscious mind, was that there was some sort of "field of images," or archetypes to which all human beings were connected in some way. Well, let me make that more precise: people sorted into groups according to which images and dynamics were dominant in their particular case. Jung's work was helpful, but didn't go far enough to explain what I was witnessing. So, I decided that it would be interesting to access this pure field. That's actually what started the whole thing.

Well, how does one access such a theorized field of symbols and dynamics that seems to have some "rule" over people's lives? The obvious answer was some form of "channeling."

BUT, there was a catch: I didn't trust anything - and I mean ANYTHING - that would just come into somebody's head - not even my own. I also wasn't interested in talking to alleged "dead dudes" anymore because, by this time, I'd had quite enough of that and if anybody knows they don't have much of interest to say, it was me, (assuming that it is anything other than a drama in the head of the subject).

One of the more interesting theories I came across regarding so-called "channeling" was developed by Barbara Honegger, said to be the first person in the United States to obtain an advanced degree in experimental parapsychology. Honegger suggested that automatism was the result of "stimulation" of the right hemisphere of the brain so that it could overcome the suppression of the left hemisphere. Automatism, as you might know, relates directly to utilizing a device such as automatic writing or a Ouija board type instrument. It was never entirely clear what was doing the stimulating, however and I could obtain no further information on her research. Whether or not the information was supposed to come from the subconscious of the individual or "spirits," was not clearly spelled out. But my thought was that, if it was true that some form of automatism could assist in synchronizing the right and left hemisphere of the brain, that even if it did not result in any real "contact," it was still a worthy exercise. [...]

My theory was that whatever the theorized "source" of whatever might be accessible, the method of automatism could be more safely utilized to access the field of archetypal symbols and dynamics that seemed to be the pool from which all people drew in the creation of their personal dramas, leaving aside the question of whether or not those dramas represented anything factual or not. My idea was that if this field could be accessed directly, after playing out and thereby eliminating via feedback, any personal thought loops or memory files, that a great deal of information about the human condition at large might be available. [...]

Nevertheless, as I noted: I thought it would be interesting to try to access the "pure field of archetypes." I knew it would take time to run out all the loops - whether spirits or just subconscious dramas - and that patience and persistence was important. And so, I settled down to do it, and it took over two years.

Now, let's go in a slightly different direction for just a moment:

Robert Scott Lazar, better known to the UFO community as Bob Lazar, claims to have worked on an alien craft for the U.S. Government at Area 51. Lazar claimed that in June of 1982, he met Dr. Edward Teller, before a lecture. At this time, Lazar supposedly worked for Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. In 1988, after leaving Los Alamos, Lazar wrote a letter to Teller and mentioned he was job hunting. He soon received a call from Dr. Teller, followed by a call for an interview at EG&G (Edger, Germeshausen & Grier) Special Projects. Lazar says he was interviewed and hired by agents from the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). He initially believed he was hired for work on an advanced propulsion system, and later heard that he was to replace one of three scientists who had been killed in an attempt to cut into an alien power plant reactor. Lazar claims that he was actually hired to study and reverse-engineer the power plant from an alien craft. The location of his place of work was S-4, sometimes referred to as Dreamland, the Ranch, or Skunk Works, about fifteen miles south of Area 51. According to Lazar, S-4 consisted of a complex facility with several hangers built into the side of a mountain.

To prepare him for his new job, he says he was required to read some 200 pages of briefing documents. Bob claims that within these blue booklets was information regarding the aliens and their technology, along with other supposed secret government projects. Some of these projects included the study of gravity drive, referred to as "Galileo", looking back in time, known as "Looking Glass", and a neutron beam weapon codenamed "Sidekick". All of these projects were said to be under a program called "Project Overview". According to the documents, aliens have been visiting Earth for a millennia and they refer to it as Sol 3. They claim that man is the result of 65 genetic corrections made over thousands of years. One group of aliens, referred to as "The Kids", came from the Zeta Reticuli star system. The documents stated that religion was given to man so he would have rules and regulations for the purpose of not damaging the containers. The "container" would refer to our physical bodies, but it is uncertain whether they referred to us as containers for the soul, or containers of DNA.

According to Bob, he worked at S-4 from December of 1988, to April of 1989. He claims to have worked on one of nine alien crafts stored in hangers there. He says the alien craft's power source was a matter/antimatter reactor, similar to our nuclear reactors but about the size of a soccer ball. This reactor produced waves that nullified gravity through the use of a super-heavy subst