In the more than two weeks since NASA’s Curiosity rover touched down on Mars, a number of images have puzzled scientists and others observing them – everything from potential images of shoeprints and fingers to humanoid-like beings (Martians?) and animals indigenous to the Red Planet.  Among the most compelling, however, are what appear to be UFOs in the Martian skies.

 

In the YouTube video below attributed to Stephen Hannard – presumably a member of the Art Directors Guild from the United Kingdom (ADGUK), filters have been applied to enhance the images of what appear to be four UFOs.  Experts viewing the NASA video from which this enhancement was produced have indicated that the apparent UFOs were nothing more than dead pixels in the rover’s charge-coupled device (CCD) camera.  Others are not so certain.  What do you think?

 

Perhaps, when settlers land on Mars, we’ll find our for sure.

 

 

 

It seems only yesterday that Barack Obama was sworn in as our 44^th President.  Yet, the mid-term elections are upon us and, as we go to the polls to determine the composition of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate as well as members of state and local governing bodies, we are also asked to consider a number of public questions and ballot initiatives on issues ranging from property taxes to healthcare to abortion.  Among the most bizarre is a ballot initiative in Denver denoted as Initiative 300 to create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission for collecting and sharing evidence that extraterrestrials are visiting Earth and for assessing the risks and benefits of making contact with those aliens.  Its primary proponent, Jeff Peckman, a practitioner and teacher of transcendental meditation and UFO writer for the Denver edition of Examiner.com, is the very same individual who – in 2008 – publicly displayed a video purporting to show an extraterrestrial caught on videotape by Stan Romanek outside his Nebraska home in 2003.  Verified as “authentic” by an instructor at the Colorado Film School, the video showed a moving image of the head of an alien as captured by Romanek peering through his kitchen window (see videos below).

Whether or not the video presented plausible evidence of Earth’s visitation by beings from other worlds or dimensions (you can be the judge), the more significant question is:  how might awareness of alien visitations of planet Earth alter our perceptions of ourselves and the destiny of humankind?

The visitation of planet Earth by extraterrestrials has long been a matter of speculation.  There are many who fervently believe that humankind’s development at various points in history has been both inspired and assisted by alien intelligence.  They point to architectural achievements like the construction of the pyramids in Egypt, prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge, and ancient images and writings arguably depicting alien spacecraft or encounters.  Others theorize that man has benefitted from an evolutionary perspective by virtue of ancient matings of extraterrestrials with Earth women.  Some point to the prediluvian Genesis account of the “Nephilim,” a race of supermen created “when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them” (Genesis 6:4) as evidence of inter-mating between human and extraterrestrial species.

Until now, the evidence in the public domain for Earthly visitation by extraterrestrials has been circumstantial and flimsy.  As technology has advanced and proliferated, however, opportunities to capture credible evidence of alien encounters with Earthlings have increased dramatically.  Whether the video presented by Jeff Peckman in support of his ballot initiative provided such evidence is a matter of conjecture.  But, it should be noted that the motives of both Peckman and Romanek are suspect, as both have attempted to profit from the video.  One also wonders about the nature and composition of the proposed Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission as well as how and to whom any public expenditures relating to the Commission and its functioning would be disbursed.

Nonetheless, if extraterrestrials do visit and roam our planet, I do not doubt that their days of passage incognito are numbered.  If they are truly here, someone somewhere will capture incontrovertible evidence of their presence.  By the way, if there are any extraterrestrial readers of this website (and, I have been told there are many), don’t phone home, phone Denver. 

  

Throughout my twelve years of Catholic school, I’d been taught to avoid fortunetellers like the plague, for some were thought to do the work of the devil.  But, like the length of my uniform skirts and the friends with whom I hung out, I didn’t give much credence to what the nuns had preached.  From the time that I could read fluently, I had researched — through books and whenever possible, personal experiences — palmistry, tarot card readings, phrenology, ghosts/spirits, seances, Egyptology, the Loch Ness monster, UFO’s, lycanthropy, vampirism, astral travel, meditation, tea leaf readings, and Eastern theosophy.

Imagine my astonishment when, a few years ago, my research uncovered the fact that the gift of prophesy is not only mentioned in 38 of the 66 books of the standard Bible, it is deemed to be a gift from the Holy Spirit!   While the Bible differentiates between the practice of consulting charlatans versus those who demonstrate true psychic ability, and issues warnings against the former, it is sometimes difficult, in this life, to discern the between the two.

As a child, I remember reading that virtually every human being is born with a sixth sense, the capacity to predict future events with a reasonable degree of accuracy.  The general consensus was that psychic ability was a type of survival mechanism, and that it could be cultivated if one removed from one’s self, as much as possible, from negative events and persons.

Later, I learned that the discipline of meditation enhanced one’s clairvoyance.  By meditation, I refer to focused and frequently practiced spiritual meditation, not the type designed simply to reduce one’s stress level.

I had my first, unplanned reading as a young woman in her early twenties. I’d been seeing two young men at the same time, and was very much interested in the one we’ll call Dave; in fact, Dave and I wound up getting formally engaged.  Romping through New York City’s East Village one Saturday night with friends, including Sam, the other guy I’d been seeing, we stumbled upon a storefront card reader, replete with the headscarf, gold hoop earrings, and crystal ball.  Everyone thought would be fun to consult her.

Approaching this as a lark, I was shocked to discover that the woman who was not much older than myself saw me with the two men: one blonde (Sam) and one dark (Dave).  She finished the reading almost in shock, saying that although I’d come far in my career for one so young and otherwise had a good head on my shoulders, I’d insisted upon falling in love with Dave, who would “bring me to ruin.”   Well, I was far from ruined, but Dave and I did split up and the schism, at the time, was deeply painful.

For years, this experience haunted me.  How had she known?  She had to have been very gifted, I’d supposed.

But further investigation enabled me to understand that “all of the information is already out there” and it’s just a matter of tapping into it.  Also, a psychic can read a subject more accurately if that subject approaches him or her with an open mind or at least, a generally positive mindset.  Not all clients do, despite their strong desire to be read.  Against my better judgment, and because I’d been pestered to do so, I had once referred a very difficult person to an excellent psychic.  Thoroughly exasperated, the clairvoyant later told me, “He’s enough to make you want to throw away your cards!”

The second reader into whom I ran — quite literally — was sitting, oddly enough, at a little card table on a quiet corner just off New York’s Little Italy.  She, too, had the scarf and the gold hoops, but no crystal ball: just a pack of regular playing cards and a very quiet, slightly amused air, as if she’d known I was about to barrel right into her.

I’d gone to the Feast of San Gennaro with the man I would eventually marry, and remembering well the incident with the first psychic, refused her offer to read my cards!   However, my future husband was very much interested.  His was a short reading, and all I remember was that she’d told him that he had an honest woman in his life, a very honest woman, and that she wasn’t sure if he could handle her.  Considering that the woman was me and that my husband is still wondering, after all these years, what to do with me, I’d say that reader was also dead on!

The next reader and I crossed paths like ships in the night, and this, she foretold, was through destiny (and thereby hang tales too long for this article).  She nailed every physical ailment in my body in the first few seconds — though I had not thought to consult her about those — and then she picked up the brochure of my realtor that I’d brought for her to see.  I was in the process of moving to Jersey and the reader, whose name was Christie, intoned, “There is a job for you across the other side of a covered bridge.”  Neither one of us understood what this meant (yes, spirits do move through genuine psychics), but months later, the light dawned.  My realtor’s office was located at the foot of a sort of covered bridge … one that enabled foot traffic over a busy highway … directly across from the writing job I’d landed!   This was just one of the many things that Christie had predicted, that later came to pass.

Bonnie, whom I met next and befriended, added to my education.  She was the first one I’d known to use a tarot deck other than the original Waite deck familiar to most of us.  The deck she used was called The Rose Deck; it was dark and beautiful, with intricate artwork.  The Rose Deck was but one of many different designs that I would later access through other readers.  Bonnie explained that she used the tarot only as an icebreaker, as some clients were not comfortable with her just pulling their most intimate secrets out of the ether.

This lady explained that when her beloved grandmother had passed on, she was a young child of four.  On the night of the day that her grandmother was laid to rest, Bonnie’d dreamed that her gran had appeared to her, advising her that, at the age of twelve, the young girl would come into the gift of prophecy.  As foretold, that is exactly what happened to Bonnie.  Fascinated with the planets and their influences, she studied astrology and was gifted in this form of reading as well.

Eventually, the accuracy of her work came to the attention of law enforcement agencies in both New York and New Jersey … and I’m talking about both State and local levels.  Often grudgingly by Bonnie, who abhorred violence, her talents were utilized in cracking major cases.  To protect her privacy, I’ll just tell you that these cases all made the headlines in their day: murder, kidnapping, and theft of a large fortune.

Bonnie also had the uncanny ability to simply touch an object and “read” its owner.  One night over dinner in a restaurant, she’d admired an emerald bracelet my husband had given me and reached across the table to stroke it.  Immediately, she got that glazed look in her eye that I’d come to know and began telling me very personal things about a certain in-law that I had never shared with her!  An in-law that had only touched that bracelet once!

Kit, a.k.a. Katherine, was another lovely reader, an older, deeply spiritual woman lauded by the Catholic Church for her continuous contributions to the community.  Kit, in my experience, was an anomaly in that she was a devout Catholic who also practiced as a psychic.  Among the many things that this wife and mother foretold in two readings, she saw me following a certain musician, approximately two years before I’d ever heard his name.  She also spoke of the wonderful friendships, travels, and experiences that my following him would bring me.

A few years later, Trish saw me journeying to the city of that musician’s birth, and the adventures — and great music — that awaited me there, and the good friend with whom I’d traveled.

Most recently, a very nice lady named Robin, who shares my love of music, foresaw me being asked by Sneak Attack, The Counting Crows’ media representatives, to cover one of their recent concerts.  She did not name the band by name but intimated that it was a large, well-respected, well-known act.

If your curiosity is peaked and you wish to consult a psychic, I have but two bits of advice to give you, which I myself have followed.   Seek a psychic, please, through the recommendation of someone that you trust.  And then feel that psychic out.  As I’d learned long ago, we are all indeed born with at least a modicum of clairvoyance, so use yours.  You want a reader who is spiritual; one who believes in a Higher Power, and a positive power.  Anyone who gives you another sort of vibe, avoid at all costs.

In 1947, reports out of New Mexico of a crashed alien spacecraft awakened the American public to the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation of Earth. The craze spawned hundreds of sightings throughout the U.S., some excellent and many not very good movies, scrutiny by the military, scientific inquiry, and popular speculation. In the intervening decades, the debate has raged as to the nature and source of these unidentified craft. Eight recent UFO sightings in China, however, have brought the matter to center stage yet again. The videos below report and provide images of the most recent encounters.

ABC News Report about UFO over China this past July:

 

Slide show of still images of the craft:

 

Video shot by airline passenger over China:

 

Based upon the Dan Brown novel of the same name and starring Tom Hanks, the film “The DaVinci Code” wove a complex mystery akin, in a way, to the old ’49ers’ search for gold.  These men would sift their pans repeatedly, day after day, week after week, in the hope of finding a nugget of the precious yellow metal.  In the process, they had to mire their way through a lot of worthless silt.  But those who found gold amassed their little treasures, nugget by nugget, until they’d found enough to add up to a significant sum. Hanks’ character, Tom Langdon, had to sift through a lot of metaphorical silt as well: red herrings, double crosses, and dead ends as he unearthed and labored to interpret a number of cryptic symbols that brought him to a very controversial conclusion.  Whether or not we agree with Mr. Brown’s conclusion (we don’t), one thing in this tale is inarguable: on the surface, things are not always what they seem.

The same holds true for many things on this planet, including the theory behind the origin, evolution, and current status of the Aryan race.

The very sound of those words, “Ayran race” still sends shivers down my spine.  My gut reaction to those words is to picture the cruelest monster ever seen in my lifetime: Adolf Hilter.  As twisted as Hitler’s dream of uniting Germany became, he’d based it upon a long-held theory that the Ayrans, from whom the Germans were said to descend, were a race of super beings.  Thus did this fiend seek to purge his nation of the Jewish people who held no claim to Ayran ancestry.

The world waged a long and horrific war predicated upon the theory of the Ayran race!  So, who were the Ayrans?  Or rather, who did they become?

The theory in question states that more than 18,000,000 years ago, the progenitors of the Aryans colonized Planet Earth.  Little is known about them, other than the facts that they possessed a higher level of intelligence and conscience than mere mortals.  Described as giants and thought at first to be “fallen angels,” they were also much taller than human beings.   To the earth — the Middle East, to be exact — the Ayrans brought their culture, intellect, and superior genetics as well as a root language.

The Ayrans are attributed with the design and construction of The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  These encompassed the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Athena at Euphesus, the Mausoleum of Mausollos at Halicarnassus, the Collossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.  Of these ancient wonders, only one remains standing: the Great Pyramid.  Because no one, to this very day, can truly explain how mere mortals built such fantastic structures, our ancient ancestors deemed them the work of super beings who came down from the sky (what we would call them “aliens” today). 

And if you think that this is nothing but legend, you’d best think twice.  Not very long ago, the Japanese assigned a team of most gifted mathematicians and engineers to recreate the Great Pyramid.  The team was constrained to use the same materials found in the Great Pyramid itself, as well as the tools available at the time that the original edifice was built.  And yet, the team failed.  The spaces between the blocks in their pyramid were too wide.  No matter what they did, they not could reduce those tolerances down to that of the original structure!

As gifted as they were, the aliens who built the Great Pyramid and the remaining six Wonders were not snobs.  They were said to have assimilated with the peoples of the ancient world, including the Semites, the Aegeans, the Egyptians, and even the Hindus and the Buddhists.  I mean that word “assimilated” in the broadest sense of the term.  I mean that these super beings mated with humans to produce a diluted gene pool: a fact that maddened Hitler enough to exterminate 6 million people of the Jewish faith along with 3 million Christians, mostly Italians and Greeks!

Long before the Great Pyramid was erected, however, and long before the Ayrans and their common language had spread out into Southwestern Europe and South America, the Bible infers that they were present from the beginning of time upon our planet.  They may be traced as far back as our earliest ancestors, as cited in the Book of Genesis.  Referring to this super race of giants as “the Nephilim,” Genesis — with boldfacing by me — states:

¹ When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, ² the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. ³ Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”   ⁴ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

Fast forwarding to the time of Moses’ search for the Promised Land, the Bible’s Book of Numbers tells us:

³¹ But the men who had gone up with him [Moses] said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” ³² And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.  ³³We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim).  We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

Inferences from the Book of Numbers suggest that if the Ayrans were that superior to Moses’ people, they must have conquered them at one point, or at the very least, mated with them to produce a race of half-supermen and half-human.  According to the Bible, then, we are all descended from aliens!

As mankind allegedly progressed into and beyond the New Testament, it altered its notion of God, creating new religions as well as new ways of perceiving the Creator.  Two of these were called Theosophy and Ariosophy: interconnected schools of thought-cum-spirituality that explained the origin and modus operandi of the Ayran race.

Founded by Madam Helena Blavatsky at the end of the 19^th century (see https://writeonnewjersey.com/2009/10/seances-psychics-and-ghost-hunters-smoke-and-mirrors-or-the-real-deal/), the Theosophical movement held that the human race descended from a series of seven Root Races, varying in skin color but of the same stock.  The Original Root Race hailed from a single progenitor.  Said to have lived 18,000,000 years ago, oddly enough, he was also thought to have lived 850,000 years ago, with the latter timeframe coinciding with the sinking of the great continent of Atlantis.

Madam B. also connected physical racial characteristics with spiritual attributes. She noted that idols and their worship had died with the Fourth Race, but had been restored gradually by survivors of hybrid races of that Fourth Race.   By “hybrid,” I assume she meant descents of those whose parents were one half alien and one-half human – in other words, the Nephilim.  This self-professed medium also further concluded that the Monads — the inferior races of the world — would ultimately be eradicated over time as each new Aryan race was born.  Kind of hard to do, I think, if they were still bedding us poor, inferior humans!

The philosophy of Ariosophy postulates that Teutonic or Nordic people were superior to all races.  This was based, perhaps, upon the Theosophical notion that these peoples were the most recent sub-race of the Aryan root. Guido Von List and Lanz Von Liebenfels took hold of Madam Blavatsky’s hypotheses, churning them up with nationalism and fascism to cough up that most disastrous result, the Nazi ideology.  Under Hitler’s reign of terror, Hienrich Himmler was chosen to eradicate “inferior races” through genetics and eugenics, with the objective to reengineer the German people as the Aryan super-race.

In the late 19^th and 20^th centuries, the celebrated science fiction author H.G. Wells wrote a best selling book in which he blended the theory of the Aryans with actual events in history.  Published in 1920, “The Outline of History” suggested that Aryans subjugated the entire ancient world nestled in the Mesopotamia, the so-called Cradle of Civilization. This Cradle, now known as the Middle East, housed the Semitic, Aegean, and Egyptian peoples.  Hmmm.  Since the Egyptians still seem to be quite healthy and the Aegeans may be modern-day Greeks, they are also, if these suppositions are correct, the descendants of aliens … the kind from outer space, not south of our border!  Another noted science fiction writer, Poul Anderson (1926- 2001), penned many novels using the term Aryan to describe a race of people who would lead in interstellar travel and colonize habitable planets. 

Considering the number of science fiction short stories, novels, TV series, and blockbuster films centering around superior races that come to earth from far off planets, one must wonder if aliens are a case of “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” or perhaps “Does life imitate art?” Including the ever-enduring Star Trek TV series and Hollywood films, many of these tales revolve around the superior races bringing us advanced technology (think: the Great Pyramid, for example) as well as the caveat to “shape up or ship out” off the planet.

Before the twenty-first century was over, America had landed men on the Moon and built a space station orbiting the earth, along with other satellites and the Hubbell telescope.  President Ronald Reagan stole George Lucas’ title of his hit movies to bring us Star Wars as a way of life, not sci-fi.   Our next, logical step would be to build a spaceship with the capabilities of The Enterprise, whose warp speeds made intergalactic travel possible, including communion with aliens.  

But maybe we don’t need the warp drive.  Maybe we don’t need to go to the aliens.  Maybe they have come to us.  Maybe they are already here.  Maybe the UFO’s sighted and photographed for decades, hovering ominously and mysteriously in our skies are evidence of that.  And, maybe when we gaze into our mirrors, we are seeing a cross between mere humans and other worldly super beings.

It gives one pause for thought.  It gives one the chills.   For if the Mayan Calendar and associated prophesies are correct, are the Ayrans out to accomplish, on a global scale, what Hitler could not?  Will we all become obsolete in favor of a totally new super race?  Will we become the slaves of that super race?  Or, will we become that sci-fi delicacy, Soylent Green — nothing more than items on a menu or food products on a shelf?  And should we mere mortals, whose days seem to be numbered upon this planet, be partying like it’s 1999? 

Many UFO disbelievers have indicated that, if extraterrestrials wanted to make themselves known to the general public, they would simply land in a populous, well-known area – for instance, the lawn of the White House.  On July 12^th, 1952, those skeptics nearly had their proof.

 

In this famous video, lights are silently moving in the night sky above the Capitol Building.  Their synchronous movement makes it appear that they are affixed to a much larger object.  Is this object an extraterrestrial craft? 

On October 30, 1938, the evening before Halloween, Orson Welles broadcast an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic novella, “War of the Worlds,” as an episode of the American radio drama anthology series “Mercury Theater on the Air.”  The resultant hysteria, created among listeners who had either missed or ignored the program’s opening credits, brought the question of extraterrestrial visitation of earth squarely into the public consciousness.

 

Wells’ story begins in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, a section of West Windsor Township.  More than 70 years later, extraterrestrial visitation is still a hot topic in New Jersey, this time in the Salem County community of Pittsgrove.  According to information available on the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) website, there have been three reports of unidentified craft over the area in the past month.

 

At 10:45 PM on Sunday, May 3^rd, Joshua Beyer and his father John were walking along the street in front of their home.  Suddenly, to their west, they witnessed what was described as a “fire orange” ball of light in the sky that they estimated to be “approximately one-half mile” from them.  As they watched awestruck, the ball of light appeared to hover for “15 minutes” or more.

 

Ten days later on May 13^th, witnesses again saw an “orange fireball” in the night sky.  This time, it was reported as a “disc” and “spinning.”  And, it was joined by four other objects of similar appearance.

 

On May 19^th shortly before midnight, Joshua Beyers again spotted a “huge orange ball” in the sky.  He ran inside to call his mother, and on returning, they both witnessed a “huge triangle shaped craft” that was “spinning” and “hovering” above Green Branch Park.  Passers-by in a vehicle traversing the road, stopped to view the object.  Attempting to contact authorities, Joshua discovered that the home’s phone lines were dead and ditto his dad’s cell phone.  He returned to his vantage point in time to observe the triangle shaped object shoot “straight up in the air…like a bullet.”

 

The Pittsgrove reports are sandwiched by reports in April and June of this year of strange lights in the early morning and nighttime skies over the Woodstown and Turnersville areas in South Jersey.

 

What are these alleged “craft” and why would they target New Jersey?  No one knows for certain.  Yet, appearances of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO’s) over the New Jersey skies are not a new phenomenon.  On the night of March 23, 1950, Mrs. Lewis Prentiss of Rumson, New Jersey, on her way to pick up her husband at the Little Silver train station late one evening, witnessed three unusual objects in the sky that she described as “three port holes with lights behind them.”  That case, unresolved by the government investigation known as Project Blue Book, is among public records recently declassified.  And, in 1952, in the daylight skies above the North Jersey town of Passaic, was spotted the object whose image is published above this article.

 

Given the property tax situation in New Jersey, one wonders why ET would want to call the Garden State “home.”