The world famous Roswell "incident" was no UFO but rather a Russian spacecraft with "grotesque, child-size aviators" developed in human experiments by Nazi doctor and war criminal Josef Mengele, according to a theory floated by investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen.
Her book, "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base," is about the secretive Nevada base called Area 51. One chapter offers the new Roswell theory, citing an anonymous source who says Joseph Stalin recruited Mengele and sent the craft into U.S. air space in 1947 to spark public hysteria.
Like past theories, Jacobsen writes that the U.S. government was involved in a cover-up of the UFO report, which has spawned space alien legend and turned this southern New Mexico town into a tourist attraction.
Bill Lyne, who self-published a book called "Space Aliens from the Pentagon" in 1993, agrees that the Roswell incident was faked, but he thinks the hoax was perpetrated by the U.S. government — not the Russians.
"They're just saying what I've been saying all along, that it was a hoax," he told the Santa Fe New Mexican. "But that Mengele stuff is a bunch of hogwash because Mengele was recruited by the CIA (rather than the Russians), and he was actually brought to Albuquerque."
Clifford Clift of the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, in Greeley, Colo., said he has not seen Jacobsen's book but has read other articles that suggest the Roswell incident involved German technology.
"After researching the claim, I found little truth in this theory," he said. "It is a stretch. One of my concerns is if they wanted to create panic, why in New Mexico and not New York where there are more people to panic? I would suggest it is another conspiracy theory and, heavens, MUFON knows about conspiracy theories. They do sell books."
Jacobsen, a contributing editor the Los Angeles Times magazine, told NPR that said she knows people will be skeptical.
"But I absolutely believe the veracity of my source, and I believe it was important that I put his information out there because it is the tip of a very big iceberg," Jacobsen said.
Julie Schuster, executive director of the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, told the Albuquerque Journal she hasn't read the book. But any new theories fuel public interest, and that's terrific, she said.
"Every time something new comes out, it piques somebody's curiosity somewhere, and the come to Roswell, and they come to the museum," Schuster said. - ABCNews
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Strange Formations on Google Maps
Here's a curious email I received today...take a look at Google Maps and tell me what you see:
Hi Lon, love P&M, and I'm hoping you can shed some light on what I've stumbled upon. Perhaps this is old news but I couldn't find any information about it on the web.
If you'll Google maps to Cape Lookout North Carolina, and find Havelock NC to the northwest, it's a distance of about 30 kilometers. And on the same line, (Havelock - Point A - to Cape Lookout southeast - Point B), look another 30 km to the southeast, out to sea and right on the rim of the continental shelf, Point C.
You'll hopefully see a few geometric shapes that I doubt could have been caused by geological forces, a thin rectangle about 20 km long and perhaps 3 km wide, roughly parallel to the coast, and a couple of right angles maybe 10 km long each, bracketing the rectangle. Zoom in and around this site, and you'll hopefully see rows of small "pyramid" shapes pointing toward land.
Just what the heck are these? IMO, they must have been built when it was dry ground, tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of years ago.
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Human virus is killing endangered gorillas
There's fewer than 800 Mountain Gorillas left in the entire world, and their survival depends in part on people willing to pay money to go see them. But all this human interaction is bringing gorillas into contact with dangerous diseases.
Although humans are most closely related to chimpanzees, gorillas rank a very respectable second, sharing about 98% of their DNA with us. The current zoological consensus is that there are two distinct species of gorillas, western and eastern, and these are further divided into two subspecies each.
While all the gorilla species are to some degree threatened, the population levels vary wildly. There are at least 100,000 Western Lowland Gorillas in the wild, and 4,000 in zoos, while fellow western subspecies, the rarely seen Cross River Gorilla, is thought to have a remaining population of just 280. As for the eastern subspecies, the Eastern Lowland Gorilla has a relatively healthy population of about 4,000.
And then there's the Mountain Gorilla. Estimates vary, but the consensus is that there's at most 800 left in the wild. Conservation efforts for this subspecies is especially difficult because their habitats are located in some of the region's most politically unstable areas, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, making the gorillas vulnerable to government corruption and even attacks from local militias, such as a 2007 incident in which Congolese guerrilla fighters in Virunga National Park killed and butchered a pair of adult gorillas.
Now, just to add to the intense difficulties of caring for the Mountain Gorillas, comes new evidence that the gorillas are susceptible to human diseases. Researchers at the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project have tracked a marked increase in respiratory illnesses in the gorillas over the past few years. These diseases can range from the gorilla equivalent of the common cold to full-on pneumonia, and these respiratory ailments are the second most common killer of the gorillas after traumatic injury.
Worse, tissue analysis has shown that two gorillas who died in recent disease outbreaks had the biochemical signature of an RNA virus known as human metapneumovirus, or HMPV - and with a name like that, you can probably guess which species they got it from. The disease may not have directly killed both of them, but it definitely weakened their immune system and left them significantly more vulnerable.
The problem is that human contact for these gorillas is pretty much unavoidable. Their small remaining natural environments happen to be located near some of Africa's most densely populated areas. And, in fact, human contact is arguably essential for their continued survival, as it's a vital source of funding for these parks - gorilla tourism brings in thousands of visitors each year from the local area and around the world to see the creatures up close.
For conservationists, it's a particularly brutal Catch-22, as one of the very things that allows these gorillas to enjoy even some small measure of protection from poachers and other forms of human encroachment - the national park system - is also bringing them into direct contact with deadly diseases. There's no clear answer here other than to remain vigilant in our role as stewards for this planet's endangered species...and I suppose hoping for the best can't hurt. - io9
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Doomsday prophet goes into hiding
zambianwatchdog - Doomsday prophet Harold Camping, who predicted that the End of the World would come on May 21, 2011, has gone missing ever since it became increasingly clear that his prediction is going to fail, even as local churches willingly stepped in to provide counseling and help to Camping’s devastated followers.
Camping, the head of the Family Radio, had predicted that the selected number of people on earth, approximately 200 million, would Rapture to heaven on May 21, 2011 while those left behind would witness the destruction of the earth which would come about on October 21, 2011.
He has based his predictions on Bible verses, namely Genesis 7:4 (“Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth”) and 2 Peter 3:8 (“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day”), and concluded that May 21, 2011 is 7000 years after the Great Flood (4990 B.C.), concluding that it indeed is the Doomsday.
4990 + 2011 – 1 = 7000 (the subtraction of “1″ is necessary because year 1 B.C. is followed by 1 A.D., skipping year 0).
Because Camping was certain “without any shadow of a doubt it (Doomsday) is going to happen,” many of his followers sold their possessions and quit their jobs.
Adrienne Martinez, a follower of Camping, and her husband have reportedly quit their jobs and spent the last penny in their bank account towards a rented house in Orlando. “We budgeted everything so that, on May 21, we won’t have anything left,” said Adrienne.
Now that Camping’s prediction is proven to be a complete failure, attention has been shifted to his devastated followers. Previously when Doomsday prophecies have failed, some misled followers have turned violent, even leading up to murders and committing suicides.
In order to prevent this, church groups are actively providing counseling and advice for the damaged souls.
On May 21, 2011, around 4 p.m. (local time), a group of rescuers, led by Pastor Jacob Denys of Calvary Bible Church in Milpitas, CA, came in front of Camping’s Family Radio headquarter in Oakland, CA, with signs and banners, and offered to provide counseling and spiritual support to the dejected followers of Camping. Camping and his staff were nowhere to be seen. However, a few of Camping’s followers who were there, avoided the crowd and refused to offer any comment. One of the followers even tried to assault the IBTimes reporter when approached, saying, “I want to be left alone.”
“We are here to reach out to those people who might have bought the lie (of Camping),” said Denys. He, adding that they are not to condemn anyone, said, “What we are hoping is that we would be able to invite people who might have been affected to our church in Milpitas and hold a special service that would embrace them and reach out to them.”
The service, Denys said, will be at 10 a.m. on May 22, 2011, the day after the failed Doomsday.
“Churches like ours, he (Camping) says, are of the devil, that the Holy Spirit has left the church and all is left now is a shell. Even though this is what they’ve been believing and they’ve been teaching, we love them and we care about them. We don’t want them to be hurt. Today is a hard day for them,” James Bynum, a deacon of the church, said
