ET gone home
The disappearance of UFOs and little green men has been reported on once more, this time by the Dominion Post (3 April – see NZ Skeptic 77).
Ben Macintyre notes that these days UFOs have all but vanished. Since 1955 America’s UFO Reporting Centre clocked 125,000 sightings but in recent years the figures have dropped dramatically. The British Flying Saucer Bureau closed down three years ago after 50 years of saucer spotting. “Why is this?” Macintyre asks, and decides that the withering of the UFO craze represents a shift in human credulity. We’re spending too much time on the internet. He concludes that ET has gone home.
Something in the skies after all?
Britain’s defence intelligence chiefs, however, still apparently believe there’s something out there that requires an explanation (Dominion Post). After a four-year enquiry, scientists at the Defence Intelligence Staff have concluded most sightings can be explained by a little-understood atmospheric phenomenon – glowing ‘plasmas’ of gas created by electrical charges, which are sculpted by airflows into aerodynamic shapes which appear to fly at extraordinary speeds.
The scientists say such plasmas can play tricks on the mind, and have “been medically proven to cause responses in the temporal lobes of the brain”. As a result, UFO witnesses may be suffering from “extended memory retention and repeat experiences” induced by the plasmas.
The report recommends the findings on UFOs could be developed for “novel military applications” and alleges Russia is already investigating such weapons.
Other phenomena which could be explained by plasmas derive from the way the space between two plasmas sometimes forms an area “from which the reflection of light does not occur”, giving the impression of a black craft, often triangular and up to hundreds of feet in length. And because the plasmas are electrically charged, they can change shape or colour if hit by another energy source, such as a radio signal sent by a UFO spotter. “This has led ‘ufologists’ to imagine that an ‘alien response’ is being given to their signals.”
Then again, maybe the alien spacecraft hypothesis sounds quite plausible after all.
Clairvoyant consultation cops criticism
Meanwhile, in Australia, a police officer has been suspended for consulting a clairvoyant while investigating a death threat against the prime minister, says the Dominion Post (10 April.) The Australian Federal Police does not condone the use of psychics in security cases, a spokesman said.
Ark to sail again
A 47-year-old Dutch Christian is recreating a ready-to-sail replica of Noah’s Ark, says the Dominion Post (15 April.) Johan Huibers lamented that children were no longer being taught the story of Noah’s flood and decided to build a modern ark out of cedar and pine. The idea came to him in a dream 30 years ago.
The modern ark is about one-fifth of the size of the biblical boat and is a 50m-long, 13m-high structure built on top of a steel barge, though it looks like the ark mentioned in the Bible.
Mr Huibers started the project at the beginning of the year and plans to launch it in September, sailing though the Netherlands’ canals and waterways. It will feature animals housed in stables, a petting zoo and re-enactments of the flood. They will also find space for a gift shop and a restaurant.
Hamilton haunted
The Frankton Hotel, the Station Cafe at Waikato University, and commercial offices in Kent St are just some of the haunted buildings to be found in Hamilton, according to the Waikato Times (June 23). And other Waikato centres are not without their spooky side: Cambridge has at least two haunted sites, including the Masonic Hotel, and many guests and staff at the Waitomo Hotel claim to have witnessed paranormal events. Not one but two ghosts are believed to be responsible – one a young girl who died when a pot of boiling fat fell on her, the other a Maori woman who fell in love with a British soldier and was mistakenly shot by a sentry as she headed for a romantic tryst. Presumably she spent the time between the Land Wars and the hotel’s construction in 1928 haunting some other locality.
Some scientists are open to the paranormal, the article reported. Waikato University associate professor Richard Coll said science usually regards ghosts as figments of the imagination, and that mediums are either charlatans or well-intentioned but misguided. “However our own work suggests that individual scientists are far more flexible and open-minded than these blunt stances would suggest.”
Dr Coll said many scientists were not prepared to discount the existence of ghosts.
“They would look for a more conventional explanation first but were still open to the possiblity such things might exist.”
Nostradamus a footie fan?
The reputation of Nostradamus may have suffered a knock after he was widely reported to have picked a Spanish victory in the football World Cup, as related by Spiro Zavos on National Radio, 24 September. The quatrain in question allegedly runs like this (with minor reported variations):
At the end of the sixth month of 2006, the King of Spain will cross the Pyrenees with his army.
The legions of Beelzebub await the battle on the central European plains.
Destruction and defeat will fall on the evil-doers.
The Holy Grail will be returned to Spain by the triumphant King.
Follow-up stories in the wake of Spain’s defeat by France have been strangely lacking.
But supporters of the famous seer have a way out. Like the quatrain doing the rounds in the wake of September 2001, this ‘prophecy’ is obviously bogus. None of the news reports cite the number of the quatrain, Nostradamus almost never gave precise dates (other than for the King of Terror who was to come from the sky in July 1999) and, the biggest giveaway, this verse actually appears to make some sort of coherent sense.
How about God then?
The Church of England, plainly unfazed by such prognostications, has had more than 4000 visits to the prayers section of its website after it posted two prayers in May calling for God’s blessing on the England football team. This represented a 28 per cent increase in visits compared with the previous four months. “The church often provides specially written prayers to mark major national events, and the World Cup is no exception,” a spokesman said. “After all, you don’t find many atheists during penalty shoot-outs.”
Given England’s performance in the penalty shoot-out against Portugal it’s obvious God wasn’t paying attention.
Look gorgeous, live forever
The Herald’s Sideswipe column (April 26 & 27) has had quite a bit of mileage out of Alex Chiu. Says Chiu’s website: “The Eternal Life Rings and The Eternal Life Foot Braces … are believed to allow humans to stay physically young forever or turn humans physically younger, (Our lawyer told us to use the word ‘believe’) as long as you wear the rings or foot braces every night during sleep.”
Sideswipe was also taken with Chiu’s Gorgeous Pill, which “pulls your entire body together, increases Chi energy and circulation to all organs, and gets rid of Chi blockades around the body. The human body is very much like a sex balloon doll. The air is its Chi energy. Without enough air, the doll will look ugly because its body or its face will not be in perfect shape.”
Prayer may make you sicker
A NZ$3.8 million study on the therapeutic power of prayer has found that cardiac bypass patients who were prayed for did no better than those not prayed for (Dominion Post, 24 April). What’s more, during the month after surgery patients who knew they were being prayed for had more complications than those who didn’t know they were being prayed for. The study was funded by the John Templeton Foundation, which encourages the study of spirituality and science. A prioress involved with the study responded: ” It tells me, frankly, that God’s way of working with people is a mystery and that technology really can’t determine the effects of prayer.”
