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“Almost all people are hypnotics.
The proper authority saw to it that the proper belief should be induced and the people believed properly.”
— Charles Hoy Fort

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Loren's Cryptozoo at Bates

Loren Coleman's joint Crypto Art exhibit had it's gala opening Friday at Bates College Olin Arts Museum.


Two floors were given over to the event which should run until October. Unless the Scimitar Cat gets loose. A great deal of thought and talent went into the Art and Crypto displays. Bigfoot and the Tasmanian Wolf were the big winners in volume and information. In addition to the life sized Sasquatch, Loren's collection of unusual casts, Gigantopithecus blacki skull, "Hobbit" skull and a newly arrived from Sumatra, a never before exhibited Oran Pendek foot cast. A fine bronze of the Patterson creature was also spectacular and done by a local Maine artist.

My favorite was of course the university corridor housing the Departments of Cryptozoology, Comparative Astrobiology and Paranormal Research.

On the patio, Wine and Cheese were augmented by lobster puffs and goat cheese puffs, and a salad bar with sandwich makings as well. A large, eclectic crowd had a wonderful time in a beautiful venue. And it's freee!! Bates is in Lewiston, Maine and easy to find from the Maine Turnpike. Olin Arts Center is the venue.

On the way there I was accosted by three Thunderbirds, honest! They were large, black, vulture like birds with the "notch" near the wingtip. They did not show the slight angularity of the Turkey vulture now common in Maine and they were much larger. Four foot + span and riding in front of a Thunderhead as well. Naturally the photos don't show scale.

More photos over on Loren's Cryptomundo Page.

Puca

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

FINDING MY RELIGION / Psychiatrist Jim B. Tucker studies past-life memories of children

FINDING MY RELIGION / Psychiatrist Jim B. Tucker studies past-life memories of children

Here is a guy risking his career by thinking... always a good sign. This sort of open-mindedness is good for society and the paper didn't look down on Dr. Tucker as so many would have. Some fascinating cases are mentioned and I imagine there are tons more in the book itself. I'm familiar with some of the excellent past-life work of Dr. Barbara Lane on Civil War reenactors who seem to harbor the souls of "returnees," which is also most interesting; the work with children seems slightly different as it is described here in that the kids start reminiscing at around 3 years and then usually forget it all before they hit double digits. Exciting stuff! I wonder why they forget. This is one of the areas that we need to understand in order to grasp the interconnectedness of the universe in it's entirety... and the real nature of what makes us human. Dr. Tucker speaks of quantum level goings on which is a decidedly forward-thinking approach. No doubt an excellent book. Interesting that the article is in "Finding My Religion," but I guess that makes some sort of sense given the nature of the subject.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Record meteorite hit Norway - Aftenposten.no

Record meteorite hit Norway - Aftenposten.no

Norway recently got whacked by a good size meteorite. The link has a nice photo taken by a farmer. The part of this report that fascinates and simultaneously depresses me is the comment by Norway's top astronomer, Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard, expressing his difficulty in imagining a rock of such size hitting Earth in modern times. Apparently a 198 pound object fell in 1904, and this one is surmised to be much larger based on seismic and acoustic reports.

To this author, Røed Ødegaard's remark represents, precisely, one of the major problems facing mainstream science in our time... a serious lack of imagination.* How exactly... in the vastness of even our solar system... can one be stunned to learn of an errant rock of 400 or 600 pounds? There must be billions of them. A rock needn't be that physically large to weigh that much, as New Englanders know.... I think we're lucky to have a dense enough atmosphere to take care of most of them and that they don't get knocked off course more often. I just don't understand the mindset.

That's what upsets and baffles me.

* The specific lack of imagination referred to here describes a tenacious hold on more than likely false and useless dogma. There is certainly little lack of imagination in the thinking up of and immediate assuming as fact such tenuous and ever more exotic concepts as dark matter and even black holes... used to explain away the gaping holes in the theories concerning our space... the holes themselves due in part to the holding of tired dogmas. Oh well... I'll just wait for some enlightened souls to sort it all out... hopefully in my lifetime... maybe the plasma guys.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

In Search of African Dragons at Cryptomundo.com

In Search of African Dragons at Cryptomundo.com

Now this would be an excellent trip too... searching for big, unknown animals in Gambia. Animals similar to prehistoric whales or crocodiles! The discovery location may have been compromised according to one comment, who says it is a tourist area... however the article starts by saying it was remote... as another comment noticed as well. Perhaps 1983 predates the hotels... or some of them? Then again, I'm not sure a prehistoric whale would care much about hotels in the area. Of course I've never been there, but, we do have Sasquatches quite near folk, so... why not? The discoverer Owen Burnham seems a good person. I wonder how I'd do in the heat? If it is anything like Panama I'd be OK. I wish this team from the Centre for Fortean Zoology all the best and hope they find not only the dead one but a live one as well!

Las Vegas Weekly

Las Vegas Weekly

I've always had an adventurous streak in me, being drawn to somewhat dangerous activities from racing Formula Fords to sidestepping across on a dual steel cable that spanned two mountains in western Massachusetts. This has over the years transformed itself into a longing to hang out in remote areas for a week or so with a nice camcorder to catch a Sasquatch, or a Min-Min light, or a saucer. It's the filmmaker trapped inside, slowly digging himself out. Among the places I've thought about inhabiting is America's apparently repeatable spot for the latter... Area 51. They do have those camo dudes to provide the danger as I make sure not to step to the backside of the sign that says they'll shoot me dead... and there are likely some dangerous creepy crawlies roaming throughout the long nights spent in anticipation and long periods of wondering if I have enough batteries should some 'test vehicle' wander by. Naturally this article caught my eye.

This post's link goes to a most comprehensive and well-crafted report on the Memorial Day festivities celebrating the Golden Anniversary of the most secure spot on Earth, the only place astronauts have ever been told not to photograph, tangibly capturing the true atmosphere of both the event and the local environment through the eyes of the locals whose lives it impacts. The author, Skylaire Alfvegren, has found and unleashed the Fortean way to compress the essence of the entire Area 51 mystique into one bite size chunk. Now I want to go camp out even more...

Ball Lightning: A Shocking Scientific Mystery

Ball Lightning: A Shocking Scientific Mystery

Here's a refreshingly nice article from a mainstream publisher, National Geographic. Rather brief, but very open-minded... which of course is a Good Thing. There seems to be an upswing in the research efforts laboratories are putting into this fascinating phenomenon. Perhaps they are finally coming around to realizing that at least some Fortean events need to be understood in order to get closer to the big picture of what exactly is really going on around us.

My query to the publisher is if this well done story... my solitary quibble being that they said ball lightning burns though windows while most reports claim it does no damage... based largely on the testimony of Dr. Graham Hubler, a physicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, can make it through... then why not articles on UFO events... after all, they could ring up Dr. Bruce Maccabee, a physicist at the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center?

Mystery Fires by Scott Corrales

Mystery Fires by Scott Corrales

This headline caught my eye since it was by Scott Corrales of the Institute for Hispanic Ufology, always an excellent source of some of the highest strangeness around. I had not been aware of the type of events reported on in this article. Apparently, glowing lights, objects that would typically be described as a UFO are seen, which raise the temperature in the immediate vicinity to a point where objects, even normally non-combustable ones, melt and burn... then it goes away... leaving not a trace of the evidence of combustion for fire researchers to explain. It gets around, with reports from Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Spain and Italy... as recently as a few months ago. My mind turned to thinking about SponCon briefly, but the description of the phenomena seems to point to something completely different, except that there is no obvious naturally occuring source such as a fireplace or electrical problems in the cases reported on; and that it happens in just minutes. In these cases, acres and acres of land are torched, animals and plants going up in flames with no smoke... high strangeness at it's best. What to think...? Ball lightning gone berserk? It lasts a long time for "regular" ball lightning and is huge, but it is probably the most likely direction. Wickedly evil aliens testing a death ray on hapless cows and farmhouses? Mmmm... maybe, I suppose. Some interesting theories are put forth in the article but they seem to be as odd as the phenomena itself. You'll like it, I'm sure.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Submitted for your approval, another update...

I can not believe that it is taking _days_, yes, _days_ for my little Glyph to defragment... The DVD really pushed it to it's limits... Whatever file 84 is... oh, man... glad I have it, though, as no other drive could've done what it did. Well, I'm sure a Rorke Data could've, but I am a Glyph guy through and through. Fortunately the RAID array arrived in time to redo the project for the second deadline in DVD Architect and I was very happy about that since I could make it look the way I wanted it to in the beginning. I am however impressed by the ULead software. It must have some pretty creative compression algorithms because it was able to make a perfectly workable DVD using disk space judged way too small by the pro program and subsequently saved my ass. I can heartily recommend ULead stuff to anyone... great for hobbyists... and pros in a pinch for space or for projects where the output doesn't need to be really fancy. Cool stuff.

Eagerly anticipated here is the imminent arrival of a BOXX 5400 workstation... good God this thing just reeks of power! Dual dual-core AMD Opterons through an nVidia Crush chipset! Damn! I don't think I bought enough memory, though... we'll see. After Effects should be very happy. Of course now all the accoutrements need to get themselves acquired... this is a good thing speaking as a gearhead, but the coffers are a might lean, so... spaghetti for dinner for a few more ages... then again it will tear through jobs like a pissed off Sasquatch taking it out on an arrogant little Bush, so more work can go through the doors... now... to get more work!

I'm off to find something Fortean to go on about...

Be seeing you.
I

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Igster update...

Good Lord, another month between posts... I apologize... Time flies...

IFM Productions has had it's new, reliable, technologically strong relationship with ax.to for hosting and email going for a few weeks now... no more fear of the big Y and whatever weirdness they'd come up with next.

In general things have been rather hectic around IFM Productions of late... finishing up a 40-minute DVD project for a local person... updating all of the sites I care for to be comfortable with the new Internet Explorer 7... missing out on a couple of Chamber events... did make my niece's birthday party... sadly pushing back the great INFO audio project yet another couple/three weeks... from which the new INFO Journal may partly arise... making preparations for this year's Fortean High Seas adventure... wrote six pages of copy for one website and one for another, which I hope they approve soon... there was nearly a week where I don't think I even went online... pretty strange for this guy.

I did note the absolutely ridiculous "Bigfoot" photos from NY... really... come on, now... some interesting UFO stories... and a lot of interest in Morgellons, which HS covered a little while ago, scroll down... actually the vast majority of traffic to HS has been to find pieces on Morgellons of late, superseding the Bosnian pyramids, which had previously ruled... I am proud to say that this blog has been listed, favorably, in Mac Tonnie's delightful blog Posthuman Blues, the excellent Cabinet of Wonders and Defrost Indoors, and the Fortean Times forum! I think that's amazing, considering I am nowhere near as prolific as I would like to be... will try harder, Phyllis...

Got a new Glyph GT060BR-500! WooHoo! DVD Architect 3 flipped me out by not having enough elbowroom... wound up using ULead DVD MovieStudio 3 which I just happened to have because it came with the burner. In theory, a new BOXX 5400 might join the machinery soon... that would be pretty wild.

Must dash... customer visiting shortly... more soon.

Be well,
Ig