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Number 118 • ATLANTIS RISING 37Shop.AtlantisRising.com or See Our 8-Page Catalog—Page 74
Order BOOKS, DVDs & MORE: Shop.AtlantisRising.comO d BOOKS DVD
6 Letters
10 AlternativeNews
16 DissentingOpinion
18 Michael CremoThe Skeletonsof Guadeloupe
22 AncientWar FiresDo Melted ScottishForts Mean AncientNuclear War?
25 Thunderboltsfrom the GodsThe Ancient Forceof Vajra and NewWeapon Theories
42Why Is theMartianSky Blue?UnansweredQuestions aboutLife on Mars
44Getting ETon the PhoneShould We BeTrying So Hard toCommunicate?
46RememberingEdgar MitchellExplorer of Outerand Inner Worlds
48Astrology
51DVD
57 Puzzle
CONTENTSJuly / August 2016
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o
hnt
e
42WMSUQL
44GoSTC
46REEa
48A
51D
57 P
28 Shaken Planet Ear to the Ground, andEyes on the Sky, forEarthquake Clues
32 BIGFOOT–aNeanderthalConnection?The DNA Search for a Genuine Ape-Man?
34 America’s Linkto Ancient Egypt?The Startling Casefor Monks Mound
38 Snow WhiteQueen of StarsAn Ancient StoryWritten in the Sky
41 GuinevereUnveiled
38
25
32
46ANCIENTMYSTERIES
FUTURE SCIENCE
UNEXPLAINEDANOMALIES
PUBLISHER & EDITORJ. Douglas Kenyon
CONTRIBUTORSMichael Cremo
Ralph EllisAndrew FainFrank Joseph
Rita Louise, Ph.D.Julie Loar
Susan Martinez, Ph.D.Marsha OaksNick Redfern
Robert Schoch, Ph.D.Steven Sora
William B. StoeckerBryan Sykes, Ph.D., D.Sc.
Carly Svamvour
COVER DESIGNRyan Hammer
GRAPHICSRandy HaraganDenis OuelletteRyan Hammer
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Subscribe or Order Books, DVDs and Much More!10 ATLANTIS RISING • Number 118
As any Star Trek fan knows, the interstellarspaceships of the future, navigating
swiftly from galaxy to galaxy, will travel atwarp speed (faster than the speed of light);but such things, we are told, are reserved forscience fiction. Nothing like that is achiev-able in this 3D realm of Newtonian physics.But, then again, we now hear that warp speed,or something very much like it, may be pos-sible after all, and traveling to the stars couldbe a lot easier then we have been led to be-lieve. Now, thanks to a strange device calledthe EM Drive, all of that and even antigravitytravel here on Earth may be possible.
The 1999 creation of British engineerRoger Shawyer, the EM Drive was first dis-missed by most scientists as impossible—aclear violation of Newton’s third law of mo-tion. But after reports that Chinese scientistsat the Northwestern Polytechnic Universityin Xi’an had tested it successfully, NASA de-cided to try it for themselves. To the greatsurprise, and even consternation, of nearlyeveryone and, as now widely reported, the de-vice worked. Nobody has been able to ex-plain it yet, but the basic facts appearindisputable. In the years since NASA beganits experiments, many independent re-searchers have also replicated the drive. Nowthere is news that a peer-reviewed scientificpaper with positive findings will be forthcom-ing shortly from NASA and its Eagleworks
ALTERNATIVE NEWS
Laboratories at Houston’s Johnson Space cen-ter.
When Shawyer made his first proposal,he stated that, according to Einstein’s theoryof relativity, electricity could be convertedinto microwaves which could be fired insidea cone-shaped chamber. The result, he said,was that the particles exerted more force onone end of the chamber than the other, thusgenerating thrust. The microwaves could bepowered by solar energy, so no fuel wasneeded. In the vacuum of space, the smallestof thrust can move the largest of objects,which can, theoretically, be accelerated tospeeds near that of light. Since no fuel wouldbe needed, spacecraft could be much smallerand lighter. The moon could be reached inminutes, and Mars in weeks.
The whole thing is impossible, say de-tractors. For a thruster to gain momentum inone direction, propellant, they say, must beexpelled in the other direction, just like IsaacNewton said. The principle is called “the con-servation of momentum.” It is worth remem-bering, however, that at one time, many verywell-informed individuals believed the worldwas f lat and that if we traveled too far, wewould fall off the edge. Modern-day f lat-earthers, we suspect, may be those who denythe existence of forces which they cannot per-sonally imagine.
STELLAR TRAVEL on the CHEAP?
EM Drive
RogerShawyer
The Enterprise goes towarp speed (Star Trek)
Number 118 • ATLANTIS RISING 11
Planet X as a major factor inthe history of Earth is a pop-
ular notion in some quarters,like, say, the Zecharia Sitchin fanclub, but the idea has alwaysdrawn sneers from establishmentscience. Recent research could bechanging that, though. While thenotion that the history of humancivilization has been altered byinteractions with another planetcontinues to be rejected, the ideathat very ancient life of anotherkind could have been threatenedby such an interchange has sud-denly caught fire.
Astrophysicist Daniel Whit-mire has seized on the recentPlanet X discoveries (see A.R.#117, “The Discovery of PlanetX”) as new evidence to explainmany of Earth’s mass extinctionsat intervals of about 27 millionyears. Whitmire and colleagueJohn Matese first introduced thetheory in 1985, suggesting thatmassive comet showers triggered
The phrase: “it’s much olderthan anyone thought possi-
ble,” is used so often in archaeol-ogy news, that it seems like allmodern timelines for human his-tory on Earth should be thrownout, and we should just start overwith a new set of assumptions.The latest case has to do with so-phisticated cave art foundthroughout the world. Advanceddrawings and paintings of manyanimal species have now beenshown to date to at least 10,000years before we thought they did.
The astonishing sketch workclearly reveals the hand of severalbrilliant artists whose mastery ofline and anatomical detail contin-ues to impress even today’s mostdiscriminating experts. In the
Ever since CharlesDarwin, his disciples
have combed the fossilrecord for ‘missing links’ in the chain of evo-lution—especially in the case of humans.There have been many candidates for thepart, and a few—like the so-called Piltdownman—outright frauds, but so far none hasproved worthy of the role. The latest case tomake Darwinian hearts throb comes fromSouth Africa.
About three million years ago tiny hu-manlike dwarfs, we are told, quite possiblypreceded—and perhaps overlapped human an-cestors in South Africa. Announcementscame in March from the team of scientistswho have now excavated a deep undergroundcave site within the Dinaledi Chamber of the
l X j f i by the close approach of the mas-sive Planet X (about 1000 timesthe size of Earth) were whatkilled the dinosaurs. The theorywas featured on the cover of TimeMagazine. Three possible explana-tions for the comet showers werestated, but since, two of themhave been ruled out as inconsis-tent with the paleontologicalrecord. The third, a Planet X in-tersection scenario, has not; andnow, with the sudden new offi-cial acceptance of the existenceof such a planet, the Whit-mire/Matese theory has beengiven a new lease on life.
As Planet X approaches thesun, goes the theory, it knocksmany objects from the Kuiperbelt into orbit about the sun,from whence they crash intoEarth while blocking much ofthe light from the sun. It’s cer-tainly a recipe for disaster. Couldlong dead dinosaurs have a taleto tell?
Chauvet-Pont d’Arc caves ofFrance, dating of the charcoaland other residues on the pic-tures had previously assignedthem to 22,000-18,000 BCE. In2015, however, art found in acave on the Indonesian island ofSulewesi yielded dates of 35,000to 40,000 years ago. So now, in anew paper in Proceeding of the Na-tional Academy of Sciences the dat-ing at the Chauvet cave art hasbeen revisited, and it too cannow be shown definitively to goback to 33,500 to 37,000 yearsago. France has now proudly re-claimed for the Chauvet caves,and its tourist industry, the titleof possessing the oldest animalart on Earth. At least until some-thing older is turns up.
CAVE ART–10,000 YEARSOLDER THAN WE THOUGHT
Drawings from Chauvet Caves
Burger—of the Univer-sity of Witwatersrand inJohannesburg—and his
colleagues, the creature was less than five feettall, with a small brain. But for those who sayit’s just another ape, researchers point to itshumanlike foot and leg. Unlike Neanderthals(according to some authorities), the Nalediburied their dead, and it was a burial sitewhich held the remains of about 15 of thenew tribe. At the moment, the paleo-anthro-pologists seem quite confident that they havestumbled upon a new species of humans, onewhich they can boldly call a “missing link.”
The greatest problem for missing linkhunters, though, remains. If there is one therewould have to be millions, yet, alas, all ofthem remain missing.
Another “Missing Link” Shows Up
g.
Rising Star cave system in a region described asthe “Cradle of Humankind.”
Labeled homo Naledi by professor Lee
Skull of“homo
Naledi”
dead di?
until som.
PLANET XDinosaurKiller?
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Subscribe or Order Books, DVDs and Much More!22 ATLANTIS RISING • Number 118
LOST HISTORY
Continued on Page 59
• BY NICK REDFERN
The Cold War is long gone, as is theSoviet Union. But, as numerous,post-9/11 events have demonstrated,the world is still a dangerous place.
In fact, it’s very dangerous. And it’s gettingeven more and more dangerous by the day.In 2015, alone, we saw Chinese hackers infil-trate and steal files on millions of Americans.The Russians began to flex their muscles evenmore. There was talk of the military minionsof Vladimir Putin placing new, atomic arse-nals in the heart of Europe, somethingwhich—if it happens—may force us to do like-wise, as a vital countermeasure. North Koreacontinued to be a big problem on the nuclearfront, as did Iran. A Russian passenger plane,en route to Egypt, was blasted out of the sky,killing everyone onboard. November 2015saw a shocking terrorist attack in Paris,France, as well as threats against Brussels, Bel-gium. And on top of that, and also in thesame month, the Turkish military shot downa Russian fighter plane, something which pro-voked very worried words that a Russian-NATO confrontation might well be almostinevitable. In December, a pair of terroristswent on a rampage in California and, as youknow, in 2016, there has been even more.
As a result of all these combined and wor-rying issues, dark murmurings suggest thatthe danger of all-out, worldwide, atomic war—a threat which subsided, to the relief of every-one, in the 1980s and 1990s, is about to rise,
once again—this time, to stratospheric propor-tions, and maybe even beyond. Could the un-thinkable be just around the corner? Are wetalking about World War Three, and is thereno way back from the brink? Could the endof the world as we know it be approaching?Perhaps. But, let’s hope not.
Are we facing our own extermination andbecoming the latest victims in a long line ofArmageddon-style events—ones in which an-cient civilizations and cultures were destroyed,and after which processes of recovery weremany millennia long? Is it possible that ourcivilization is, in reality, just the latest in along line, one of many? Did previous culturesblossom, develop and thrive, only to be de-stroyed by something akin to the very nucleartechnology that now threatens our entire so-ciety today? Could that technology have beencreated and unleashed by hostile extraterres-trials, with very little care, regard, or thoughtfor the poor inhabitants of Earth? Even moreincredible, could some of that very same tech-nology have been shared with certain ancient,elite humans? Might we, then, be talkingabout atomic confrontations involving aliensand humans?
Quite reasonably, the skeptic might ask:where is the evidence for such a thing? Theanswer for many is shockingly simple. Forthem, the evidence is everywhere. It’s a caseof knowing where to look for it that counts.But, how we interpret that same evidence isimportant, too.
What we see is a dark and disturbing story
that takes us into the distant past, into theworlds of forgotten lands, of unknown peo-ple, and of long-dead civilizations largely rel-egated to the domains of folklore and legend.Time and time again, it appears, catastrophicevents of an atomic nature may have deci-mated major portions of the planet, eradicat-ing entire cultures, and killing people onscales we can scarcely begin to imagine orcomprehend.
Atomic warfare in the past, however, ap-pears to have been very different from whatwe would likely see today. God forbid it everhappens, but if a Third World War doeserupt, it may be the transformation of somelocalized confrontation—perhaps on the bor-der of South and North Korea, or in the dis-puted waters off the coast of China—to anall-out atomic exchange between the West,China, and Russia. In mere hours, our civi-lization could be obliterated. Forever. Therewould be no going back. And there wouldhardly be any going forward either. Theplanet would suffer unimaginable damage toits ecosystem and atmosphere. For the fewbands of survivors, it would be grim indeed—and not just for decades, maybe for centuries,maybe millennia. On a smaller scale, however,is a related situation that may have occurredlong ago.
Most, if not all, of the available data thatpoints in the direction of ancient atomic ex-changes ages ago suggests, not worldwide
FiresCould Forts of Melted Stone Hold LostSecrets of Ancient Nuclear Technology?
LOST HISTORYRR
Could FoFF rtstt of MeMM lee tett d Stott ne HoHH ld LostSecrcc err tstt of Ancicc enee t NuNN clcc ear TeTT chcc nologo ygg ?yy
Fires
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Continued on Page 27
The vajra is the mostimportant ritual im-plement of VajrayanaBuddhism. In San-
skrit, the word ‘vajra’ is de-fined as something hard ormighty, as in a diamond. Itsymbolizes an impenetrable,immovable, and indestructi-ble state of knowledge andenlightenment.
Our knowledge ofthe vajra goes back todeep antiquity. Texts in-dicate that the vajra wasnot always a symbol ofpeace and tranquilitybut something very dif-ferent. It first appears inancient India where itwas the primary weaponof the Vedic sky-godIndra, the king of theDevas. According to theHindu Puranas, the evilAsuras, Namuchi, and Vritraremoved all of the light andmoisture from the earth. Itmade the land inhospitableto living beings. Indra battledthe demon gods unsuccess-fully and as a last resort calledupon their supreme godVishnu for help.
Vishnu informed him that only aweapon that was neither solid nor liquidcould kill Namuchi and Vritra. Vishnu hadthe divine carpenter Tvashta fashion Indra amarvelous weapon he could use to vanquishthe dreadful Asuras. This new weapon, thevajra, emitted thunderbolts. With it, Indra an-nihilated Namuchi and Vritra and returnedthe much-needed light and moisture back tothe earth. The Rigveda describes this conflictthus.
Now I describe the glorious deeds of Indra,who holds Vajra. He killed the serpent and madewaters flow. He broke the hearts of mountains.He killed the serpent, which was taking refuge inmountain. Tvashta made the Vajra for him. Likethe cows making sounds, flowing waters reachedthe sea. Mighty Indra chose Soma, and drankfrom three containers. Generous Indra held Vajrain his hand, and killed first born among the ser-pents.
Rigveda 1.32
The vajra, when used, was thrown at one’sopponent. Nitin Kumar, in his article, “RitualImplements in Tibetan Buddhism”, tells us,“As a hurled weapon the indestructible thun-derbolt blazed like a meteoric fireball acrossthe heavens, in a maelstrom of thunder, fireand lightning.”
Traditional images of the vajra depict it asmetal shaft with three, five, or nine prongsthat emanate from lotus blossoms on eitherend. Originally, according to the ancient In-dian text the Rigveda, when Indra used hisvajra it had open prongs. Buddhist legendsuggests that Shakyamuni, the Buddha him-self, took the vajra from Indra and forced itsprongs closed, thus transforming it from a de-structive weapon into a peaceful scepter.
Scholars contend that there is no relation-ship between Indian, Greek, Australian, Norseand the cosmology of the Americas. They be-lieve that each civilization conceived of theirgods independently and that a deeper, older,universal tradition does not exist. If this werethe case, then the foundation of these soci-eties—their myths, traditions, beliefs andiconography—should be unique to them,their location, and their history. The tales ofwar, intrigue and conquest that come out ofAmerican history are vastly different fromthose of England, France, India, and China.So too are the customs, traditions, and thesymbols that represent the nation. Yet, whenwe look at a wide range of ancient and indige-nous groups, a pattern of commonality exists.Myths and symbols found in Indian historyreadily appear in the oral and written descrip-tions of other cultures. They also appear in
their artistic images. These rep-resentations seem to transcendtime and location.
The symbol of thunderor a thunderbolt as a tool ofdestruction, for example, sur-faces in many ancient civiliza-tions. Mythology unfailinglyassociates lightning with a skygod, the god of thunder, whouses it as a weapon.
In the Western world, thethunderbolt is most readily as-sociated with the Greek sky
god, Zeus. With it, hedefeated the Titansand took control ofthe Greek pantheon.Myth tells us thatZeus freed the Cy-clopes, the masterbuilders, who wereimprisoned in the
depths of the underworld—Tartarus. In gratitude for theirrelease, they gave him a mar-velous weapon, the thunder-bolt. In another story, Zeusused his formidable weapon tobattle the largest and mostfearsome creatures in all ofGreek mythology, the hun-dred-headed serpent Typhon.Early images of Zeus showhim holding a rod-like thun-derbolt, while others show thisdeadly weapon with its endssplayed into three prongs.
A vajra-like weapon also appears inSumerian cosmology. Its use is recorded inthe Bablyonian Epic of Creation, the EnumaElish. A battle between the sky god Marduk(Bel) and serpent Tiamat is detailed on thefourth tablet of this ancient document. Theevil and powerful Tiamat, according to theEnuma Elish, was devising treacherous plansagainst Ea and the other reigning gods. Thegods were afraid to invoke her evil wrath andsearch for a solution. Ea attempted to con-front Tiamat, but instead of fighting, backsdown. Marduk, his son, steped forward andvolunteered to fight the enraged serpent, onone condition… If he was successful, hewouldhave dominion over the entire universe.
The gods agreed and provided Mardukmighty weapons including a bow, a mace, anda net to use in his battle against Tiamat. Im-ages of this epic scene show Marduk holdinga three-tipped scepter in his hand. Subsequentimages clearly depict this same deadly three-pronged weapon.
They gave him the unrivaled weapon, thedestroyer of the enemy [saying]: “Go, cut off thelife of Tiâmat. Let the wind carry her blood intothe depth [under the earth].” The gods, his fathers,issued the decree for the god Bel. They set him on
ANCIENT MYSTERIES
• BY RITA LOUISE, Ph.D.
Ancient Vajra, Technology of War?Winiyouwi
ALTERNATIVE SCIENCE
• BY BRYAN SYKES, Ph.D., D.Sc.
The two most promising candidates asthe source of our anomalous pri-mate, be it ‘yeti’ or ‘Bigfoot’, are thegiant ape Gigantopithecus and other
human species, like Neanderthals, favored byBelgian biologist Bernard Heuvelmans andRussian hominologist, Boris Porchnev. Thereare several books that debate these twothemes, often in great detail and with greatpassion, but which tend to forget that theyhave no convincing evidence for either. Bothspecies are generally held to be extinct,though, as we have seen, the hope amongcryptozoologists is that there are survivingpockets in remote parts of the world. Untilvery recently, there was no serious intellectualplatform to support either theory. Whilenothing has happened to enhance the pros -pects of Gigantopithecus as the biological in-carnation of yeti or Bigfoot, there has beenspectacular progress in discovering the com-plexity of our own human evolution. It nowseems as though our Homo sapiens ancestorsshared the planet with several other humanspecies and even interbred with them. The no-tion that there could be parts of the earthwhere these other humans survive to this day,either as a completely separate species or as atype of genetic hybrid, does not seem any-where near as ridicu lous as it once did.
The currents of thought in the matter ofhuman evolution have f lowed back and forthever since Darwin convinced the world (ormost of it) that we evolved from other speciesover a very long period rather than being cre-ated in our present form. The discoverywhich began our appreciation that we havenot always been the only human species onthe planet was made in 1856 when a very oddskull was found in a limestone cave near Dus-seldorf, Germany. Among other unusual fea-tures, it had a receding forehead and veryprominent brow ridges. At first it was dis-missed as a freak, a mutant with some sort ofdeformity. However, when other very similarskulls began to turn up from excavations, firstin Gibraltar, France, and Belgium, and laterin the Middle East, it slowly dawned on anti-quarians, the nineteenth century predecessorsof today’s palaeontologists, that these werenot diseased skulls at all, but, they belongedto another type of human, eventually calledNeanderthal after the Neander Valley (Thai inGerman) where the first skull, the type spec-imen as it is called, was discovered. There fol-lowed over a century of often acrimo niousdebate as to whether Neanderthals were ourown ancestors or whether they belonged to adifferent species now extinct. Judging by theage and distribution of Neanderthal andHomo sapiens fossils, the two species did sharethe same geographical range in Europe as wellas further east. The long debate was finallysettled in the 1980s when both genetic andcareful anatom ical analyses concluded that
Neanderthals were a completely separatespecies and that our own ancestors, ‘newly’arrived in Europe from Africa 40,000 to50,000 years ago, had replaced them.
The argument appeared to be settledafter the successful recovery of DNA fromthe Neanderthal-type specimen in 1997 which
showed that its mito-chondrial DNA se-quence was quite unlikethat of any modern human.The intellectual dominance ofthe ‘Recent Out of Africa’ camplasted until 2010, when the same Ger-
red byns andThere
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BIGFOOTA Neanderthal Connection?
Human DNA andthe Hunt foran Ape-Man
32 ATLANTIS RISING • Number 118
BookExcerpt
A reconstructedNeanderthalface
Number 118 • ATLANTIS RISING 41Shop.AtlantisRising.com or See Our 8-Page Catalog—Page 74
LOST HISTORY
Continued on Page 68
• BY STEVEN SORAThe real Arthur is also difficult to pin
down. He is mentioned by name by the firstBritish historian, Geoffrey of Monmouth,who compiled his history in 1135. Geoffreyclaims that a man named Vortigern ordereda tower built. The tower kept collapsing untilMerlin was brought in to consult on why. Atthe time Merlin was eight years old. (One ver-sion has Merlin sacrificed to appease what-ever evil was stopping the building.)
Merlin said that two dragons weretrapped in a pool under the building site.When released, the Red Dragon which repre-sented the Britons was beaten by the WhiteDragon representing the Saxons. This legendmay have been a way of clarifying to the kingthat he was the cause. In two versions actualdragons were released.
Vortigern had made several mistakes.The worst was thinking Briton’s fight with thepeoples in the north could be won with thehelp of the Saxons. Merlin pointed this outwithout directly criticizing the king. Vortigernwas a real king of the Britons and part of atrue story.
The Romans had been in control of Eng-land for centuries, but in the early fifth cen-tury, fighting barbarians who were attackingItaly called for the return of Roman forcesfrom the distant borders. Around 410 ADRome was no longer in control. Geoffrey saida Roman, Constantine, became king but waskilled by a Pictish assassin. One of his threesons, Constans, said Goeffrey, took over andkilled Vortigern. Vortigern (meaning highking) took over as leader in or around 450.The kingdom of the Britons was surroundedby the Scots (actually from Ireland) and thePicts from Caithness and the Orkneys. No
Although much of the Grail legendsare only legends, the story of Guin-evere and her family is real. Theclan to which she belonged, and
led, survive into the present day.Arthurian legends have been told and re-
told for nearly a thousand years. Personalitieshave been added, altered, and often misinter-preted. Possibly the most misunderstood isGuinevere. She was no Maid Marion like inthe Robin Hood legend. She has been mar-ginalized and worse; the reality that she was awarrior queen whose assistance might havesaved the Britons and Arthur from beingcrushed, has been downplayed.
We first meet Guinevere when she is be-trothed to Arthur. No background is pro-vided for a courtship and no reason is givenfor the marriage. The perception we get ofher is shadowed and negative. The marriagesurvives, though, with no detail for decades.Then she commits her greatest sin—an “affair”with Lancelot—which is also misunderstood—and in the older legends she is depicted ascruel and heartless.
The real Guinevere is more complex. Tounderstand her is to understand Briton in theDark Ages. This is the time period from 410AD when Rome retreated from the fringes ofits empire to defend itself against barbarians.The Dark Ages are said to have ended in 1066when the Normans took over Britain. TheGrail Romances were written well after theDark Ages ended—seven hundred years later—and in another country, France.
Notably there were no castles in the fifthcentury. British defenses were hilltop fortifi-cations of wood. But as Homer had changedthe world of 1200 BC when Troy was de-feated, to the then-modern world of 775 BC,Grail writers did not wan to ruin a good storyby letting true history interfere.
Grail TalesIn the Grail Romances when Guinevere
first appears at her wedding to Arthur she issaid to be the most beautiful maiden in thekingdom. She is immediately humble to hernew husband in a marriage arranged by herfather and Merlin.
Sixteenth century engraving of a youngPictish female warrior,
from Theodor de Bry’s Grand Voyages
Pictish warrior, (Cassell’s IllustratedHistory of England)
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• BBBBBBYYYY STEVEN SORATThhe reall AArthhur iis allso ddiifffffff iifff cullt to piin
down. He is mentioned by name by the fiff rstBritish historian, Geoffff rff ey of Monmouth,wwho compiled his history in 1135 Geoffff rff eyyllthhoughh muchh off thhe GGraiill llegendds
How True Is the Image We’ve Been Given?
Subscribe or Order Books, DVDs and Much More!
In a sense, there are really three planetswe call Mars. There is the Mars of fic-tion, of dreams, of imagining. There isMars as depicted by the National Aero-
nautics and Space Administration (NASA)and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) basedon their own interpretation of the data fromtheir various orbiters and landers. Then thereis the ‘real’ Mars—now only dimly percepti-ble—which appears to lie somewhere betweenthe Mars of fiction and the official versionoffered by NASA and its allies.
Writers of fiction have had a field daywith the red planet. Edgar Rice Burroughs(the creator of Tarzan) wrote of “Barsoom”and envisioned a Mars with breathable air andnumerous exotic life forms. Ray Bradbury, inMartian Chronicles, depicted a world inhabitedby intelligent humanoids. In Robert Hein-lein’s Red Planet, human colonists shared the
planet with intelligent natives. In1906, amateur astronomer Per-
cival Lowell wrote Marsand Its Canals, speculat-
ing over what hethought were arti-f icial channels,and theorizedthat they werebuilt by an in-telligent raceto stave offthe end of adying worldthat had once
been warmer and wet-ter. It now appearsthat there are nocanals but, still, cer-tain surface features,like the shadows ofthe Tharsis bulge vol-canoes, the VallesMarineris canyon,and the rims of thelarger impact craters,seen dimly and occa-sionally when viewingconditions are opti-mum, could certainlybe taken for a canalsystem.
The official NASA/JPL version of Mars,though, is something else. After the first or-biter, Mariner 4 in 1964, NASA concludedthat the Martian atmosphere at the mean sur-face level (MSL) was less than one percent asdense as Earth’s at sea level—equivalent toours twenty miles up. In 1975, the first VikingLander did experiments to search for life; butthe results were ambiguous and contradic-tory, so NASA concluded that there was nolife on Mars, at least not on the surface, al-though bacteria might survive underground.NASA researchers did find immense volca-noes; vast canyons deeper than any onEarth’s land; planet-wide dust storms; clouds;frost; but, they assured us, there was no signof any civilization, past or present. In theview of some alternative researchers those
conclusions are premature, to say the least,and not based on actual evidence.
Let’s consider NASA’s assertion that theMartian atmosphere is almost a vacuum. As-tronomers had for many years imagined thatthe Martian sky, seen from the surface, wouldbe a dark blue near the horizon and black,or nearly so, at the zenith, just as Earth’s skyappears from a plane f lying at high altitude.Surprisingly, though, the landers have shownus a pink sky—and a rather light pink, at that.If the air is as thin as the ‘experts’ say, should-n’t the entire sky be black, as our own skyappears from a balloon twenty miles up?NASA argues that the pink color is due tosuspended dust, but, even given the lowerMartian gravity (.37 of Earth’s), how couldan atmosphere of little more than a vacuum
WORLDS BEYOND
MARTIANSKY BLUE?
• BY WILLIAM B. STOECKER
WWWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDDSSSSSSSSSS BBBBBBBBBBBBBEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDDDD
WHYIS THE
MARTIANSKY BLUE?
And other Unanswered Questionsabout Life on the Red Planet
Clouds and sand on the horizon of Mars, October 17, 2006.(Photo: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, Cornell, JPL, NASA)
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support so much dust, even when the air isstill? Moreover, in some lander pictures, in-cluding some from the current ‘Curiosity’mission, the Martian sky is pale blue, verymuch like ours near sea level. In one imagefrom Viking 2 (also 1975), the sky is a virtualblue, and the American f lag decal on the lan-der is red, white, and blue, but on anotherthe sky is pink and the f lag’s colors are off.Some authorities believe this is a very strongindication that the real daytime color is blue(except during sunrise or sunset or during adust storm). Anyone who has done much fly-ing or mountain climbing can look at the skyand very roughly estimate his altitude—andon Earth, light blue indicates a very low alti-tude where the air is fairly dense. Several laterMars lander pictures also display a light blue
sky, while pictures taken by the Hubble Tel-escope in 1997 show a blue margin aroundthe body of the planet.
The supposed near-vacuum atmosphereof Mars still, somehow, manages to deposit avisible layer of frost overnight. On Earth,twenty miles above the surface, there are,rarely, some wispy, almost invisible clouds,but on Mars, clouds resembling our familiarcirrus clouds are not uncommon and, in-deed, some orbiter and lander pictures showdense clouds, even a mostly overcast sky. Thissimply would not be possible on a cold, dryworld with an atmosphere less than one per-cent of Earth’s. In fact, NASA has admittedthat some ice crystal clouds are about 15miles above the Martian surface, where the
air is supposedly only one thousandth as denseas our atmosphere at sea level.
Liquid fresh water, moreover, could notexist in any quantity on the Martian surface,for even just above the freezing point, itwould boil in the thin air. Yet orbiter photosshow what appear to be substantial meltwaterponds, with the bottom visible in the shallowwater near shore but not in the deeper water,and with seeming ice f loes on the surface.NASA has never denied any of these pictures,nor commented on them, but they have ad-mitted that streaks on hillsides are signs ofseasonal water f lows. To explain the liquidityof Martian water, NASA has postulated thatthe f lows must consist of brine, which has alower freezing point—there is, however, noreal evidence of this. Furthermore, how doesthis strange water get back up the hill to f lowagain next season, unless there is substantialcondensation (or even precipita-tion), implying a denser atmos-phere?
The various NASA landershave used parachutes to slow theirlanding speed to a safe level. Yethere on Earth in October 2012,Felix Baumgartner parachuted from128,000 feet up (about 24 miles),and had to fall for several miles andattain an incredible supersonicspeed of 833 miles per hour beforehis chute would open, by whichtime he was well below 20 miles up,and, even then, the air was thin
enough that he and his chute could survivethe opening. Yet, Mars lander chutes magi-cally deploy four miles above the Martian sur-face. A parachute’s ability to slow a payloaddepends on its surface area and the atmos-pheric density, because the formula for mo-mentum is mass times velocity, and a widerchute traps a greater mass of air. Using simplearithmetic and high school physics, it can beshown that the chutes used on Mars wouldnot work as advertised if the air was as thin asNASA claims. The implication is that theMartian atmosphere may be even denseenough that human visitors to Mars—while,doubtless, needing oxygen masks and cloth-ing to protect from ultraviolet sunlight—would not need heavy, cumbersome pressuresuits. On Earth, pilots do not need full pres-sure suits until they are more than 50,000 feetabove sea level, where the air is only one sev-enth as dense as at sea level. In warmer areasat midday or in the afternoon, humans wouldnot even need heavy clothing. It also meansthat hardy terrestrial life forms, such as cer-tain lichens, might survive on Mars, so cer-tainly any life forms native to the planetcould survive on the surface. But is there lifeon Mars?
Even NASA and JPL have stated thatriver channels and ancient seabeds indicatethat in the remote past Mars was warmer andwetter (just as Percival Lowell suspected), andlife might have thrived there. But did it? Anddoes life still exist on the surface of Mars?One clue to the past is the very color of theRed Planet. There is much iron oxide in thesoil, and for iron to oxidize, free oxygen mustonce have been present in large amounts—andthe only known way for really large amountsof oxygen to be freed is through photosyn-thesis by plants. The famous meteor fromMars found in Antarctica contained whatlooked like fossilized nanobacteria, but thisis still disputed. But, then, there are the sea-sonal color changes noted by Percival Lowelland other astronomers—large areas of Marsbecome darker in color in spring and sum-mer, as if vegetation, dormant in winter, wasspringing to life. Hubble telescope imagesseem to show a slight greenish tint to theseareas. NASA, however, has claimed the colorchanges are caused by seasonal dust storms.In other words, dark colored dust blows in
The higher regions of Mount Sharpon Mars photographed onSeptember 9, 2015, by NASA'sCuriosity rover. The color has beencalibrated by NASA to match theforeground with similar formationson Earth. (NASA)
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VikingLanderPhoto with colors cali-brated to flag
Crater withmany channels
apparentlycarved recentlyby free-flowing
water
Seemingly fossilized plantsphotographed in the South
Polar region. (NASA-JPL-MSSSMG5 MOC M09-02042)
(CourtesyMarsAnomaliesResearch.com)
Continued on Page 70
Number 118 • ATLANTIS RISING 43
Curiosity rover
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THE OTHER SIDE
• BY ROBERT M. SCHOCH, Ph.D.
Dr. Edgar D. Mitchell passed awayon February 4, 2016 in West PalmBeach, Florida, at the age of 85 (hewas born on September 17, 1930
in Hereford, Texas). This article is not meantto be an obituary or a systematic summary ofhis life but, rather, some personal ref lectionson a man who was not afraid to push theboundaries of scientific orthodoxy, particu-larly in the realm of psychic research and con-sciousness studies.
Mitchell was, in my assessment, a greatman. Some have suggested that he had great-ness thrust upon him by being in the rightplace at the right time, such that he waspicked to be an astronaut and ultimately be-came the sixth person (out of twelve) to walkon our Moon. Mitchell was Lunar ModulePilot on Apollo 14, January-February 1971.He accompanied Alan Shepard who, a decadeearlier, had been the first American in space.
Of course, Mitchell did not just “hap-pen” to become an Apollo astronaut. All ofhis training and experience led up to it. Hewas a pragmatic engineer and scientist (withdegrees from the Carnegie Institute of Tech-nology, the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School,and a doctor of science degree from the Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology, 1964). AtMIT his dissertation was on space vehicleguidance. He was a test pilot with the U.S.Navy (from which he retired with the rank ofcaptain in October 1972).
Walking on the Moon made Mitchell acelebrity. He gained the public spotlight, andwith his fame came inf luence. A lesser manmay have used such power for simple per-sonal gain. Mitchell, however, used his inf lu-ence to promote subjects and causes that hebelieved strongly in but which make manymainstream scientists smirk. He became ac-tively involved in consciousness studies,founding the Institute of Noetic Sciences in1973. In his later years Mitchell was perhapsbest known for his comments on UFOs. Cu-riously, as a youth Mitchell had grown up inArtesia, not far from Roswell, New Mexico.He graduated from Artesia High School in1948, the year following the famous Roswellunidentified f lying object (UFO) incident.Was it a crashed extraterrestrial craft, a “flyingsaucer,” as initially reported? Or was it noth-ing more than a weather balloon or some sim-ilar object? In a 2009 videotaped interview,Mitchell stated:
“Well my opinion is based upon prima-rily, not my personal experience, because Idon’t have any personal firsthand UFO expe-rience, only the fact that I grew up in Roswell,New Mexico, which was the site of presumedalien crash in 1947, and which from what Icall the testimony of the old timers who werethere and who have been hushed up by gov-ernment authority, military authority, almoston pain of death at the time, and who had
harbored their knowledge quietly for years. Aswhen I came back from the Moon and I wasa local boy they considered me safe enoughto tell their story to, that they were a part ofthe recovery effort and the observer of the so-called Roswell crash and that they knew forsure that it was an alien craft. And subsequentsightings, subsequent evidence, has reaffirmedall of that, that we are being visited and havebeen visited by alien spacecraft and alien be-ings. And our governments around the worldhave covered it up, but only recently othergovernments have opened, started to opentheir files, except the United States has stillnot started opening its files.”
My personal familiarity with EdgarMitchell was through his interest in my workon re-dating the Great Sphinx of Egypt. Thelate Boris Said, executive producer of the doc-
umentary “The Mystery of the Sphinx” (firsttelevised on NBC in 1993, and in which I ap-peared), was a friend of Edgar Mitchell’s.Mitchell agreed to an on-camera interview,stating:
“If geological evidence and dating evi-dence suggest that the Sphinx is much olderthan we previously believed, it raises greatquestions for our concept of how humanityevolved over the last hundred thousand years.Those are pretty well established notions, soif the Sphinx is proven to be much older, itraises a huge question mark as to what sortof sophisticated civilization could possiblyhave existed to create this monument.”
Mitchell astutely realized that the re-dat-ing of the Great Sphinx not only questionsthe traditional scenario for the origins of civ-ilization, but also the standard Neo-Darwin-
RememberingEdgar Mitchell
Portrait of Edgar Mitchell ashe looked in December 1970
“Some are borngreat, some achievegreatness, and some
have greatness thrustupon ‘em.”
—WilliamShakespeare,
Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5.
hharbboredd tthheiir kknowlleddge quiiettlly ffoff r years. AAs umenttary ““TThhe MMysttery off tthhe SSphhiinx”” ((ffiifff rstt
Explorer of Outer and Inner Space
