The 2009 crop circle ’season’ started with abundance and now looks set to bring a summer of circles to Britain’s fields.

Whether made by human hands or an altogether different life form, no less than 20 formations have been spotted since the season began in April. This week alone two huge designs have mysteriously surfaced.

An intricate 150ft dragonfly appeared in a barley field near Yatesbury, Wiltshire, just days after a jellyfish design was cut into crops in Oxfordshire.

Daily Mail: Jellyfish, dragonflies and peace symbols: The summer of crop circles is just getting started

(via Electric Children)

It’s worth noting (mainly because few have bothered to note it, or to understand and appreciate the significance of the matter) that one of the “Recommendations” of a lengthy Technical Report prepared by the Air Force’s flying saucer study, Project Grudge, way back in August 1949, states: “That Psychological Warfare Division and other governmental agencies interested in psychological warfare be informed of the results of this study.”

The Department of Defense’s official definition of psychological warfare is: “The planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives.”

As the above Grudge revelations show, way back when in the formative years of Ufology, certain players were looking to understand how the subject could be used psychologically.

UFO Mystic: Crashed UFOs? Probably Not…

(via Mac)

Over a century ago, on June 30th, 1908 a huge explosion detonated over an unpopulated region of Russia called Tunguska. It is probably one of the most enduring mysteries of this planet. What could cause such a huge explosion in the atmosphere, with the energy of a thousand Hiroshima atomic bombs, flattening a forest the area of Luxembourg and yet leaving no crater? It is little wonder that the Tunguska event has become great material for science fiction writers; how could such a huge blast, that shook the Earth’s magnetic field and lit up the Northern Hemisphere skies for three days leave no crater and just a bunch of flattened, scorched trees?

Although there are many theories as to how the Tunguska event may have unfolded, scientists are still divided over what kind of object could have hit the Earth from space. Now a Russian scientist believes he has uncovered the best answer yet. The Earth was glanced by a large comet, that skipped off the upper atmosphere, dropping a chunk of comet material as it did so. As the comet chunk heated up as it dropped through the atmosphere, the material, packed with volatile chemicals, exploded as the biggest chemical explosion mankind had ever seen…

Full Story: Universe Today

(thanks Mac)

I came across a snippet in Sci-Fi Wire about a couple of producers closing in on a writer for a film based on the Ouija Board. Guess they forgot about the series of Witchboard movies from the ’80’s. This one may turn out to be good, but the movies that I’ve seen recently haven’t impressed me much. (Then again I haven’t had the time to watch very many.) What’s next? Some marbles and Pik-Up-Stiks become animated and seek revenge? Tarot cards come to life and start the revolution? GI Joe zombies??…

“Platinum Dunes producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form told SCI FI Wire that they’re close to hiring a “very high-level writer” to begin drafting a script for a Ouija-themed movie, tied to the Parker Brothers’ “spirit board” game.

“I don’t think we’ve closed the deal, so I can’t say, but we’ve got a very high-level writer to write that, and we start writing it, I think, within the month,” Fuller said in an interview over the weekend in Beverly Hills, Calif., where he and Form were promoting Friday the 13th.”

(”Closing in on a writer for Ouija movie: The signs are auspicious” via Sci-Fi Wire)

(Related: “Turn your ipod into a Ouija board” via Cnet Uk)

One of the various projects of the Esalen Institute was the Physics Consciousness Research Group, founded to study time travel, ESP, consciousness after death, and other fringe subjects. Various people have made the claim that Physics Consciousness Research Group was the inspiration for the movie Ghostbusters. Jack Sarfatti, one of the founders of the Physics Consciousness Research Group, is a physicist and archetypal “mad scientist” - in fact, he claims to be the inspiration for both from Back to the Future and Egon Spangler from Ghostbusters.

Full Story: Hatch 23

SRI International (previously known as Stanford Research Institute) is the clearest influence on the DHARMA Initiative (though DARPA is closer in name. Incidentally, SRI has been known to work for DARPA). SRI is a non-profit research institute working in a broad range of fields including, according to Wikipedia: “communications and networks, computing, economic development and science and technology policy, education, energy and the environment, engineering systems, pharmaceuticals and health sciences, homeland security and national defense, materials and structures, and robotics.”

Things got weird for SRI during the 60s and 70s, when it was engaged in parapsychology and LSD research. They hired L. Ron Hubbard, tested Uri Geller’s claims, and experimented with remote viewing.

They also compiled a report called The Changing Images of Man, contracted and funded by The Charles F. Kettering Foundation (the real life equivalent of Alvar Hanso?).

Full Story: Hatch 23

The year I was born, in 1981, the US Government decided magick was real. Well, the “US Government” is of course an abstraction—specifically, Congressional Research Service was commissioned to do a report on psychic phenomena and offered the following conclusion:

“Recent experiments in remote viewing and other studies in parapsychology suggest that there exists an ‘interconnectiveness’ of the human mind with other minds and with matter. This interconnectiveness would appear to be functional in nature and amplified by intent and emotion.”

That sounds like a pretty accurate description of magick to me. Score one for the weirdos, right?

Of course, I don’t expect you to believe that. Ignore any claims that wouldn’t get made outside a college-level physics textbook. There is no need to believe in non-human or “extra-dimensional” intelligence, no need to believe in telekinesis, no need to believe in any of the claims made by the magick community. They are merely designing rituals to alter their perception and experiencing self-generated hallucinations.

The illusion of moving images is a puzzle that humans have cracked to great success, and by flashing sequential photographs at 24 frames per second or more, we get to watch movies—windows back in time. Humans have even learned to “fake” three-dimensional objects with holographic technology.

Full Story: Brainsturbator

The Israeli branch of the UFO centred movement known as the Raelians was planning something special to commemorate ‘World Orgasm Day’, a huge orgy in downtown Tel Aviv, the largest city in Israel. The event was going to attract at least 250 participants of all sexual orientations: Straight, bisexual, gay and lesbian and was meant to make a powerful and highly relevant statement in this most troubled part of the world: that it is far better to make love rather than war. Sadly however the organisers have been forced to cancel this year’s event due to numerous violent threats made towards both the movement and the venue. The threats are believed to come from ultra-orthodox Jews who feel such celebrations violate the sanctity of the Holy Land and go against the morality of Judaism.

Full Story: allnewsweb

(via Jon Lebkowsky)

(thanks Public Individual)

See also: Wired: In Troubling Economic Times, Consumers Flock to Online Psychics

They were getting completely behind their product, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, by ramping up a viral advertising campaign that would draw the public into their show. With the right public momentum, the gimmick would have netted them some serious press coverage and ratings. But the project got snuffed when the writers’ strike hit. That pushed back the airing date of this mid-season finale episode, and Fox moved on. In their wake, they forgot to let on about it and left the hundreds of UFO-ologists spinning up hundreds of thousands of hours combing over the Drones evidence and tossing out their conjectures. [...]

Did Fox perpetrate the viral ad gone south, or did they take advantage of something that is out in the public domain and made it their own, risking possible legal issues?

Full Story: Jhoomba

(Thanks Trevor)

From the English Russian: “This Russian animal was born numbered. It’s still is and the owners search for some good sports player who uses the number “10″ to sell the goat to him.”

More pics: the English Russian

(Thanks Danny)

After Trevor Blake showed us Drone’s “Strange Craft” video, my girlfriend went digging for more information on the dragonfly drone UFOs. Here’s what she found out:

it started off as several videos and photographs in big basin, CA, lake tahoe, and alabama. two similar impressive and otherworldly crafts were supposedly seen by several different eyewitnesses. the main witness spreading info in the UFO community was a mysterious guy named “raji”. well, when more and more people tried to contact raji, he disappeared.

internet forums blew up as a guy named isaac started posting about the crafts, and supposed official CARET documents.

isaac’s info however, did not hold up against internet forum scrutiny. posters shared that the computer company alienware had announced a contest that required entrants to crack an alien code; and the code was the exact code on the CARET documents.

Full Story: surrealestate22

Drone on Myspace

(via OVO)

Great series of articles on possession and the artist.

“In a beautifully written and highly interesting recent post on his interview with Mark Stewart for The Wire, Mark K-Punk writes:
“…one link between the post-punk trio I wrote about in the July issue (Stewart, Mark E Smith, Ian Curtis) is channeling. In order to get at what is at stake in so-called psychic phenomena (and its relationship to performance and writing), it’s necessary to chart a middle course between credulous belief in the supernatural and the tendency to relegate any such discussion to metaphor: being taken over by other voices is a real process, even if there is no spiritual substance. (…) Hence another take on the old ‘death of the author’ riff: the real author is the one who can break the connection with his lifeworld self, become a shell and a conduit which other voices, outside forces, can temporarily occupy.“

(Posts on Possession 1-7 via Documents)

Citing unsafe practices and potential toxic contamination, the Environmental Protection Agency shut down a small ghost- entrapment operation in downtown Manhattan today, and had four of the business’ spectral-containment specialists arrested in the process.

According to EPA agent Walter Peck, employees of the company-located in an old fire station in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York-had repeatedly refused to grant him access to their storage facility, which posed a health hazard to the surrounding community.

Full Story: the Onion

“This summer, I visited Glastonbury, the New Age epicenter of England, to speak at a ‘Great Mysteries’ conference about orbs. Orbs are best known as those mysterious balls of light that have appeared on digital photographs for the last fifteen years, though some claim they can see them with the naked eye as well. Orbs have spawned an enthusiastic subculture of people who believe the blobby wisps are not dust particles or lens anomalies, but angels, spirits, other-dimensional beings and so on. Although I am now an accredited orbs expert, I remain agnostic on the subject. In this area, one encounters the same difficulties in establishing a methodology as one does with other phenomena that float on the outer edge of cultural possibility, such as UFOs, crop circles, occult conspiracies, miraculous appearances of the Virgin and so on.

The Orbs Conference offered an eccentric collection of testimonies, channeling, scientific research and slide shows. My favorite take on the orbs came from William Bloom, a local mystic, who claims he has telepathic chats with the spheres. The orbs told him they work like ‘a cloud or a flock,’ and visit us to ’support group consciousness.’ According to the orbs, ‘As we touch your individual psyches you begin consciously to experience yourselves as intimately connected with all other life forms on this planet and throughout the cosmos.’ A physicist who connected two cameras to take simultaneous photographs found that orbs would only appear on one or the other camera. While he took this as evidence of their quantum subtlety, it could suggest spoof rather than proof.”

(via Common Ground. h/t: The Anomalist)

Up until a few days before the killing, Li held a part- time job delivering newspapers in Edmonton. He was well thought-of by his boss and considered a nice guy, if a bit quiet and shy.

On July 20 — just 10 days before the killing — Li delivered copies of the Sun that contained an extensive interview with Carlson about his research into the Windigo, a terrifying creature in native mythology that has a ravenous appetite for human flesh. It could take possession of people and turn them into cannibalistic monsters.

The two-page feature talked about how, in the late 1800s and into the 20th century, Windigo “encounters” haunted communities across northern Alberta and resulted in dozens of gruesome deaths.

Full Story: Canoe

(via From the Lab)

We know of parasites, such as toxoplasmosis, that can alter a hosts behavior. Could there be such a thing as a “Windigo parasite”? If so, how accountable can people be held for their actions?

Just thinking out loud here…

An excellent interview with Rick Strassman in which he talks about his new book, and reflects on his DMT research and experiences with Zen Buddhism with more hindsight than he did in his book DMT: the Spirit Molecule:

It’s a multi-authored book, non-fiction. It’s pretty much the brain-child of the second author, whose name is Slavic Wojtowicz, who is an oncology researcher for a pharmaceutical company in New Jersey, and who also happens to be a big science fiction buff and illustrator. He read my book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, and felt that there was a lot of overlap between the material we presented there and the kinds of things that people read and write about in science fiction. He felt it would be a fun and helpful thing to educate people in the science-fiction community about some of these overlaps and areas of similar interests.

He asked me if I’d like to collaborate with him, and I agreed. I asked another colleague of mine, Louis Eduardo Luna, who is a South American anthropologist who divides his time between Brazil and Helsinki and has been working with Ayahuasca for a few decades now. He has probably got one of the more balanced and sophisticated overviews of how to look at and apply the states and plant wisdom information that is associated with Ayahuasca. And so Louis Eduardo agreed to collaborate, and then Louis had a friend in Budapest Hungary named Ede Frecska, who is a Hungarian psychiatrist and has written a lot on new science views on shamanism - having to do with quantum mechanics and non-local theories of information transfer and storage - and so Louis Eduardo asked Ede if he’d like to collaborate. So that’s how the four of us came together to collaborate on writing the book.

Full Story: Reality Sandwich

See also: DMT and Extraterrestrial Communication at Brainsturbator.

And, of course, come to Esozone to hear Dennis McKenna talk about the role of entheogens in society, and Brainsturbator’s Thirtyseven talk about the end of reality.

The mystery surrounding the ‘big bangs’ that shook the Kincardine area July 31 deepened last week, with University of Western Ontario (UWO) scientists ruling out a meteor shower.

“Something pretty significant exploded south and west of Goderich and Kincardine,” said Dr. Peter Brown, associate professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Western and the Canada Research Chair of meteor science. “It could have exploded out in Lake Huron.”

Seismic sensors recorded two events minutes apart at the time Kincardine-area fire departments and police were swamped with calls that an explosion had occurred in the area, earthquake experts said Friday.

But Earthquake Canada seismologists say it will take more analysis to determine what caused the events shortly after 11 p.m. on July 31 near Goderich.

The first event was recorded by seismic sensors at 11:01.22 p.m. and had a magnitude of 1.4 at a depth of one kilometre.

The estimated location is in Lake Huron in Canadian waters west of Point Clark, but not far from the Canada-U.S. border.

If it was an earthquake, it is unlikely it would have been felt by anyone, seismologists said.

But there was a second event captured by the seismic recorders at 11:07 p.m., said Earthquake Canada seismologist Catherine Woodgold.

Full Story: Kincardine News

(via OVO)

More: Pink Tentacle

“During a summer of superhero blockbusters, Dallas psychiatrist Colin A. Ross, M.D. ( www.rossinst.com), is perfecting a superpower of his own. Dr. Ross’ application to the $1 Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge has been received by the James Randi Educational Foundation ( www.randi.org). Dr. Ross can make a tone sound out of a speaker using nothing but an energy beam he sends out through his eyes.

The $1 million prize serves as a challenge to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. The James Randi Educational Foundation states in its Challenge rules that he is only interested in a demonstration of the claim. He does not want theories about how the paranormal claim works. Therefore, Dr. Ross is not required to explain how his demonstration of the human eyebeam works — only that it does work.”

(via MarketWatch. h/t: Professor Hex)

he year is 1908, and it’s just after seven in the morning. A man is sitting on the front porch of a trading post at Vanavara in Siberia. Little does he know, in a few moments, he will be hurled from his chair and the heat will be so intense he will feel as though his shirt is on fire.

That’s how the Tunguska event felt 40 miles from ground zero.

Today, June 30, 2008, is the 100th anniversary of that ferocious impact near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in remote Siberia–and after 100 years, scientists are still talking about it.

“If you want to start a conversation with anyone in the asteroid business all you have to say is Tunguska,” says Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “It is the only entry of a large meteoroid we have in the modern era with first-hand accounts.”

Full Story: NASA

(via Hit and Run)

See also: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event and Tunguska event in fiction. The latter notes that the Tunguska Event was mentioned in Ghostbusters.

The formation, measuring 150ft in diameter, is apparently a coded image representing the first 10 digits, 3.141592654, of pi.

It is has appeared in a field near Barbury Castle, an iron-age hill fort above Wroughton, Wilts, and has been described by astrophysicists as “mind-boggling”.

Michael Reed, an astrophysicist, said: “The tenth digit has even been correctly rounded up. The little dot near the centre is the decimal point.

Full Story: the Telegraph

See also: Crop Circles in South Korea 2008

(via Cabinet of Wonders)

Perhaps it’s a good thing that this is in the UK, otherwise I’d probably be glued to my set most of the time:

“Paranormal purveyors of scariness Yvette Fielding and Karl Beattie will launch a new TV phenomenon on Monday 9th June 2008 - The Paranormal Channel. The Channel will first broadcast from 18:00 hours on 9th June and show a petrifying mix of original programming shot on location, exclusive re-runs of British science-fiction author, inventor and futurist Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World, through to sci-fi and horror movies.

The Paranormal Channel is the brainchild of Fielding and Beattie, with a high proportion of the original programming being made by their successful Manchester-based production company, Antix. Executive Producer and face of The Paranormal Channel Yvette Fielding says: “Karl and I have worked towards launching this channel for many years. Our Most Haunted devotees have told us in person and online, that they’ve always wanted a dedicated channel for all things paranormal. From ghosts, UFOs, aliens, mythical monsters to doppelgangers and poltergeists, The Paranormal Channel will cover every possible phenomenon.”

(via IT News)

Pink Tentacle has a round-up of seven mysterious Japanese creatures. Above are some drawings of Kappa:

Kappa (river imps) have appeared in countless stories and folk legends for centuries, and they rank among Japan’s most well-known cryptids. While most people nowadays regard the amphibious child-sized troublemakers as pure myth, stories of kappa encounters still crop up from time to time, such as the following two reports from Japan’s southern island of Kyushu.

Full Story: Pink Tentacle