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he incredible and terrifying events that unfolded on the evening of 5 November 1975 were to shatter the lives of Travis Walton and his six colleasues. As they drove home to Snor{lake, ,\-izona, after working in the forest, the crew noticed a strange, bright light comine down thlough the trees.As the truck screeched to a lialt. \\hlton and his colleagueswere confiontecl rvith an awesomesight. '\\l.rer-r\re got around the trees,we all saw the solrrce of the light - boom - less than 100 feet a\{a\.a rnetallicdisc hovering in the air, glon'ine.' \\ alton recalls. His more calrtious friends remained in the truck rvhile the irnpetuous Walton leaped out and ran to\\'ards the craft. He did not want to miss the chance of seeingit up close.As he stood almost beneath it, his bravery left him. He turned to run back to the truck. He never made it. Mike Roeers, the crew boss, saw a 'blue
bolt of energy' strike walron'sback.panicking. Rogersinstantly floored
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the accelerator and drove away.A few hundred metres down the road, realizing he had left his friend for dead, Rogers drove back, only to see the spaceship rise rapidly into the sky and disappear. Walton was nowhere to be seen.
A The vost pine forests of Arizono wos lhe setting for the firsl ever wilnessed olien obduclion. Newspopers (inset) reported how Trovis
F A C IN G
A
MU R D E R
C H A R GE
After five days and a massivepolice search, there was still no sign of Walton. But,.just as the police were aboul to charge the crew rvith murder, Walton reappeared. He was discovered naked in a phone booth on the outskirts of town, seriously dehydrated, delirious and half dead. Finally, after months of recovery, he was able to remember fragrnents of what had happened. He recalled being taken inside a space craft. 'I was lyinu on a table... I saw
Wolton disoppeored in front of his colleogues ond wos nol seen for neorly o week. For over 2O yeors, the only explonolion for whot hoppened to Wolton remoins his own - he is convinced he wos kidnopped by oliens.
The abduction phenomenon, which is characterized by specific and highly distinctive episodes reported consistently by thousands of people from around the world, is generally a modern occurrence, confined lo the post-warperiod TH E
FIR S T
E N C OU N TE R
Researchers now acknowledge that the abduction phenomenon began on 20 September 1961. Betty and Barney Hill were driving through New Hampshire around midnight when they spotted a 'pancakeshaped object with two rows of windows' which appeared to be following them. Eventually, Barney pulled off the highway and crept to within 25 metres of 'an enormous ring-shaped craft with projected fins and whirring red lights' in the air. Terrified, the Hills sped off, but moments afterwards, the car began vibrating. Then they heard an unusnal beeping sound, and a haze seemed to fall over them. Later, when the Hills arrived home, thev discovered that several strange creatures standing over me. I became completely hysterical and flipped out. I knocked them away,but I f'elt so weak I collapsed. They forced me back on the table, placed a mask over my face and I blacked out.' suffered nightmores for before hypnosis dElnils of Afler hypnosis, remembered the olien irnd rhe stqr
T E ttIN G
THE
What is significant about the Travis Walton case is that it is one of the few abductions observed by independent witnesses.It is also unusual because Walton was missing for five days. In most contemPorary cases, the abduction experience lasts for only a few hours. Over the years, sceptics have tried to debunk Walton's claims. The rarity of abduction reports in the 1970s,meant Walton and his friends were subjected to years of ridicule and accusations of trickery. Yet : .. all the men subsequently .':j passedlie-detector testsand ,n^. case has.withstood years ,,, ^â‚Ź of rigorousinvestigation.
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33 r$ Abducfions profoundly offect the lives of those who experience them. The effects ore lroumqtic ond distur bing, but they o l s o cqn be fr onsfor m ing Dr JohnMock, Psychiotrist
q l\ ,, both their watches were two hours slow. They could not remember rvhat had hap pened to them in the'missing' two hours. Afterwards, both were plagued by disturbing dreams. Eventually, they agreed to undergo a technique known as hypnotic regression therapy to discover what had happened to them. Hypnotic regression allows subconscious or buried memories to emerge. Under hypnosis, the Hills described being taken on board the UFO 'by bald-headedalien beings, about five foot tall, with greyish skin, pear shaped heads and slanting cat-like eyes.' Betty in particular provided a vivid picture of what seemed to have taken place during the period of 'missing time'. She remembered being subjected to a medical examination. She said samples of tissue were taken
{ Whitley Striebercloimsto hove been obductedin t985. In his book Communion he describeshow he wos 'mentollyond physicollyroped' by his obducrors.In his sequeflronsformalion, Sfriebersoys the oliensore in foct trying to help Monkind. soon discredited, but their fabrications put the credibility of UFO research back years. It took unti l l he earl y 1980sbel ore f ir sr t he UFO community and then the public were taking claims of alien abduction seriously. TA TK IN G
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In.fune 1992, the Massachusetts Institute of Technologv (MIT) chaired the Abduction Study Conference. This lvas the first scientific debate on alien abduction and was an attempt to allow the leadins investigators to presentthei r evi dencearrdprovi de a f ior um fcrrseri orrssci ent i fic di scussi on. Attending the MIT conference were three of rhe w orl d' s l eadi ng cxperts whose researchprovidesmuch of rhe evidencesupporting the alleeed reality of alien abduction. Budd Hopkins is responsible for much of the pioneering investigationsinto abduction. Dr DavidJacobs, associateprofessor of Historlr at Temple Universiq', has been investigating UFOs for 25 r'ears.Ard chairing the abduction conference rvasperhaps the most influerrtial acaclernicto join the abduction c:rnp. Dr John E. Mack, prof-essor of Psr.cl'riutrv at Harvard Medical School, and a P rrli rzel P l i zc tr i rrrrer' .
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and a long needle was insertecl into hcr navel as part of what she called a'preenancv test'. She was also shown a star nrap of Zeta Reticuli. Betty believed the aliens u,'ere shcil.ing her where they came from.
ABDUCTEE
OR CONTACTEE?
The charactcristic nature of' abduction cases,which started rvith the Hills in the 19[r0s,contrasts sharply tvith the notorious and colourful events described by various people, known as 'contactees',whose dubious encotrnters with aliens filled the -\nelican tabloids in the 1950s. Tl-refirst and most famous contactee was Ceorse Adamski, who claimed to have been visited bv various humanlike aliens who gave him riclesin UFOs to Venus,Mars and Saturn. Adamski and other contacteeswerc
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One of the outcomes of the conference was the realization that a huge range of dii ferent people had described the same tJpe of abduction procedure, fhe same details about what they are subjected to and the same type of aliens involved. To abduction researchers, this was strong evidence that abduction is a reality. If alien abduction was some form of delusion, the accounts would be fantasy driven and thus differ wildly. Yet they all fall into similar and repeated patterns. UNDE R
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When inside the craft, abductees are under the total control of the aliens. They are usually asked to strip, placed on a table and subjected to often painful and frightening types of invasive surgery. Once returned, most people's memories of the events have somehow been wiped clean and cannot be accessedwithout hypnosis. Dr Mack cites evidence from several of his cases.He says,'there are several types of physical evidence fbr abduction: people return with fully healed scarson their bodies that were not present the day before. Also, strange implants... are located on CAI scans; some have even been removed
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and examined.' So far, chemical analysis of the implants show that they are made up elements found on earth. A colleague of Dr Mack's, a nuclear biologist, ran tests on one implant taken from the nose ofan alleged abductee. The implant was not a naturally occurring 'biological subject' bltt nrav hale been a manufacturecl fibre. Sceptics maintain that no leliable evidence for abducti on exi sts otrtsicle t he victim's imagir-ration.T1-rearea that receives the heaviestcriticism h:rs been the process by which hidden rnernories are extracted using hypnotic regressiontechniques.
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Kevin McClure, a member of The Society for Ps,vchicalResearch, claims that man)' abduction researchersusinp; hypnosis are not qualifiecl psychologists. And McCh.rre accusesthose who are qualilied of implanting memories - encouraging victims to recount details that support the abduction scenario by asking leading questions. McClure also states that False Memorv Syndrome (FMS) may be responsible for
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explaining abductees' reports. FMS is a ctisorder where a memory has been created bv o the subconscious to replace some child_9 hood trauma, such as sexual abuse. Sceptics I i: of alien abduction argue that many abductees are subconsciouslyusing an alien E abduction experience as a screen to hide a â‚Źs traumatic experience from their past. I .9 p o
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AR T I F IC IA T
ST IMU TA TION
Psychologist Susan Blackmore claims that abduction experiences can be atificially induced by stimulation of the temporai lobes (an area of the brain that plat's a role in the stora g e o f memo)' ). Thrs theorv \\ras demonstrated by a Canaclianbased research tearn who designed a device that generatecl a magnetic field which, when applied to the back of the brain, stimulated an alien abduction experience in someone lvho has never claimed to have had orrc. Albert Budden, author of Allergies and Aliens, has a similar explanation. He is convinced that alien abduction is caused by electromagnetic pollution. Budden believes that the electromagnetic radiation in the atmosphere is strong enough to affect the temporal lobes of abductees' brains, causing an alien-abduction-like experience. 'It is clear,' he states,'that all abductees are electrically hypersensitive,and that their experiences are a symptom of their allergic reactions to an exposure to electromagnetic fields in the environment.'
But none of these theories cut any ice with researchers like Hopkins, Jacobs or Mack. To them, the evidence for alien abduction overwhelms any psychological reasonsput forward by rhe sceptics. Researchers are positive that Travis Walton was not suffering from any mental illness when he rvas abducted. AIso, it is unlikely that all six of Walton's colleagues would have had hallucinations of their fiiend's alien abduction at the same time.
#ffi 1& I hove not come ocross lhe phenom enon of obduction s by qliens except os q delusi onql belief of someone suffering from schizophrenio Dr SueDovidson,Psychotheropist
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And the lie-detector tests show that they believed they saw Walton's abduction. Over-active imaginations and temporal lobes cannot explain the physical scars on abductees' bodies or the implants taken From thei r bocl i es. N ow . U FOl ogi sr s ar e introducing the theory that rhe butchered carcassesof livestock are further evidence that aliens are conducting a planet-wide experiment. This link has yet to be proven.
In the next issue, WO FILE examines the carcosses of mutilated anirnals a,nd seeksto discoueruthetheraliens are inuolaed.
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A Stonehenge, on Solisbury Ploin, took roughly 3OO yeors ro build, storting in oround 2OOOBc. Why ir wos builr is not reolly known, but whot is undenioble is the focr rhot it lines up wifh onolher five prehistoric ond religious londmorks.
mons the many enigmas that surround Stclnehenge,its relationship with other prehistoric monlrments sil{A-i{ili*is one of the most contentious. According to ley lir.rehunters, Stonehenge is part of a 30-kmlong ley line. = Ley lines (the proper term is actually l e y s )a re i n v i s i b l ea l i g nmentsof l andmarks. Typical features on a ley include stone circles, standing stones, pagan altars and &burial sites. Churches, h<-rlywells, hill tops, cairns and even ancient trees can also be points on a ley. Mosl researchersagree there must be dt least four markers within 15 km before an alignment of lanclmarks becomes a genuine ley. It was.businessmanAlfred Watkins who first mooted the concept of leys more than 75 years ago, after having a vision of a network of straight lines linking up landmarks in his nadve Herefordshire. He believed these alignments were Stone Age tracle
routes'Iaid out by line of sight. \\htkins th.ought the leys had been modifiecl durins tlie Bronze and Iron Ages but hacl been forgotten by modern times. The nenlork of' leys were accidentally preservecl as rrlallv medieval churches were built on top of pagan siteswhich were monllme llts on a ley'. :
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Watkins' adoption of the term 'Ler-' lvas from a Selxon word meaning 'a cleared stretch of ground'. FIe was never happr'rvith the term and used it onlv for a limited period of years, but it str,ick artd is used commonly today. After \'Vatkins' discover,v, finding leys became an English national pastime. But, although searching for leys was populaq there was no agreelnent on the purpose of the alignments. Watkins' theory that leys \rere prehistoric trade routes was dismissed by archeolc-rp;ists. They refused to believe that
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Stone Age men had the technology to build straight paths over long distances. And common sensedictates that travellers would follow the easiestroute, which is not always in a straight line. Stone Age technology, howeveq should not be dismissed to o quic k ly .S t oneh e n g ew a sb u i l t s o th a t a r d a wn on m ids um m e r mo rn i n g , 2 l J u n e . the sun rose over the'circlels Heel Stone. N th o ugh ley s m ay n o t b e l ra d e ro u te s . there is evidence to showlthat Stone"Age ma n d id hav e t he s ki l l to e re c r mo n u me n ts th a t a ligned wit h ea c h o rh e r. In t he 1960sand 7 0 s . l e v h u n re rs a n c l archeologists fell out rrhen researchers such as author.fohn Michell and dowser Tom Graves claimed that leys were channels of a mystical earth power. They said that prehistoric people were more aware of th e i r own ps y c hicab i l i ri e sa n d c o u l d s e n s e the earth power so brlitt monuments on th e l e y s .T his ear t h p o w e r.c l a i me d rh e l e y
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hunters, could be picked up by energy dowsers.Others have gone further. After a spate of UFO sightings in 1961, Tony Wedd, a former RAF pilot, suggested leys are lines of magnetic energy which alien c raft tap i nro to refuel . These theories were rubbished by scientists. Energy dowsers (unlike water and mineral dowsers) have not put themselves up to rigorous scientific testing. And no scientific equipment has been able to
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re c o rd a n y my s te ri o u s force emanati ng lrom the earth. So, rather than look for some 'magical' explanation for the significance of the leys, ley hunters sought out alignments.from around the world to see if other cultures thought straightlines were special.
A Whqt mokes the Nozco lines so remorkoble is thor they con only be seen from the oir. Drowings such os the humming bird con seen ot orcund l5O mefres obove lhe
DE S E RT_M4S TJRP T E CE s
deseri. The.geometric shopes ond stroight lines (which run for over 3 km) ore besi seen ot obove 45O melres.
V Monlgomery ley, on rhe Welsh border, is one of the less cleor-cut leys. The phofogroph of 5r Nicholos' (right) is roken fiom Monlgomery Costle looking south on lo on oligned roqd. The losl poinl on rhe ley is a
T h e my s te ri o u sl i n e s d raw n on the desert floor in the Nazca region of Peru are perhaps the world's most famous linear marki n g s . Be c a u s eo f th e i rn i que cl i mati c and geological conditions in the desert, the animals.birds and geometric shapesdrawn on the desert floor have survived for centu ri e'ss- a s mu c b a s 1 ,5 0 0years.A s for thei r significance,no-one really knows for sure.. Author Eric von Dziniken proposed that th e l i n e s w e re l a n d i n g gui des for U FOs. But, if aliens had the technology to cross th e v a s tn e s so f s p a c e . i t i s unl i kel y they would have needed the Nazca desert as a landing strip. A'more probable answer
came from author and film maker Tonv Morrison, 'who . has explored Sor,rth A meri ca and has hecome an exper t or r it s mythology. He believes that.the straight lines had a religious significan'ie lor the peopl e w ho drew them. Morrison has made extensive studies of the N azcal i nes and of areasi n B ol ivia.just on the other side of the Andes mountains from P eru. U si ng i nfra-red su r veying rel i gi ous m onuequi pment. he -studi ed ments i n B ol i vi a' sA ymaran regi on. He dis- '' covered that many religious monuments lvere ir-rperfect alignment - sodre of these alignments were over 30 krn long. The l ocal A vmaran Indi ans cal l ed the se lines si q' i s (meani ng strai ghl l i nes of holy pl aces).One ol d w oman sai d to Mor r ison
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that the siq'is were 'spirit paths'. , To ley hunters, this was the clne to the true significance of alignments. Straight lines, whether physical (as in the Nazca l i nes) ' or i nvi si bl e (as i n the l i nes b er ween t-Wo points on a ley), were important bâ&#x201A;Źcause their planners believed them to
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be pathways ofthe 4ead. This-mythology is common all round th e w o rl d . T h e C h i n e se bel i eve i n the a n c i e n t p ra c ti c e o f fe n g shui w hi ch states that a straight landscape'allows. the easy passageof evil spirits. The,.iDutch have evidence that associaies ghosts with straight paths. They have physical remnants gf medieval death roads (doodwegen) , ghoit roads (spokenwegen) and corpse roads (lykyy*egen). These were straight roads where the dead were taken l o c e me te ri e s . R e s e a rc herJohn P al mer fo u n d l e g a l l y b i n d i n g oaths i n H ol l and fro m th e M i d d l e Ag e s th at suaranteedthe carriage of the dead'in straight lines only
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along death roads. CORPSE WAYS In GMapy and Britain, there is evidence of 'church paths' or ',corpseways' where ' first discussed in Alfred the dead were carried over specially made Wqtkins' The Ley straight tracks to a cemetery or burial , srbund. The tracks became sacred. ' Hunler's /|lonucl in the l92Os, hos chonged L e y h u n te rs th i n k the roots of spi ri r: path myths from around the world come dromoticolly. The ideo of leys being.sources of from the traditions of shamen. These puf energy lhe serious w e re l h e tri b a l me d i c i n e men and w i tchley reseorchGrs back 2O doctors of western Europe, Asia and the yeorc. lf is only now, Americas. Slramen were known to take p l a n ts th a t ma d e th e m hal l uci nate. when ley hunlers ore looking for historicol Anthropologist Marlence Dobkin de Rois ' focts, lhoi ley hunring is believes these plants would induce a 1 .tra n c e -l i k es ta l e .w h e re th e shamanw oul d being token more seriously by experts. have an out-of-body experience. During r The theory of leys,
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this trance, shamen believed they flew to the spi ri t w orl d. Ley researchersbelieve that the alignments all over the world are representations of the shamen flight into the spi ri t w orl d. TH E
WAY
A H TA D
FOR
LEYS
" Ley researchers now dismiss the New Agp.* 'i:. earth energy theories ffom the 1960s and. 70s. In doing so, they have tregun to mend the bridge with professional archeologists. Danny Sullivan, editor of The Lq Hunter magazi ne,bel i evesthe younger breed of archeologists are starting to work closer with seriousley hunters, Iooking for archeological and anthropological evidence not just of leys but of our prehistoric pasl s '**
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ffiffi ffiffiKffiffi WTTnU PUBLISHERS NNO TV COMPANIES NEED INTELLIGENT RESEARCH ON UFOS AND THE PARANORMAL, THEY CALL ON JENNY RANDLES. HERE SHE SHARES HER FORTHRIGHT VIEWS ON THE UNKNOWN enny Randles' fascination with the paranormal began in the 1960s when, as a teenager, she was unsatisfied with the incomplete rurswers science P.#.# provided for unexplained phenomena. She saved up money from delivering newspapers to join the British UFO Research Organization (BUFORA), and later became one of the group's investigators. Between 1981 and l993,Jenny became BUFORA Director of Investigations, where she helped to devise and establish an authoritative code of practice for paranormal researchers. Today, Jenny is a respected author and researcher on many unexplained phenomena. She has written over 30 books on subjects as diverse as spontaneous human combustion and time travel. In 1996 she made a documentary about UFO research for the BBC and is the consultant for ITVos Strange But Tiue? seies.
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In her seaside homeJenny speaks candidly and with passion about her work, and explains how her interest in the paranormal stemmed from early encounters with unexplained phenomena which, at the time, were almost taken for granted. Since I rr'asa child I was aware of abilities, such as ESP,through my grandmother. She alwaysturned up at our home when somebody was ill - shejust knew. I didn't really think there was anything strange about it. I was too young to think in terms of 'normal' and 'paranormal'; I thought everyone cor-rld do it. I was also brought up in the Rossendale\/alley., south of Burnley in Lancashire - an area that has since become known as 'UFO Alley' because of the number of sightings. But it was actually on a famil'r' trip to Blackpool that I saw my first UFO - a series of strange lights in the sky. I knew what I san'rvasreal and was later able to verifizfrom nen'spaper reports that there had been other witnessesto the everlt too.
book deols wirh olleged UFO croshes oround the world. Alwoys coreful lo present ?wo sides lo every slory, her bolonced, rotionsl opprooch hqs won her respect from fons qnd critics olike.
Did the UFO sighting influence your choice of coreer? Yes.I trained to be a science teacher, but I for-rnd myself questioning the answerssciencegave for the things I had witnessed.So, in October 1972 I joined the investigative team of BUFORA. In 1976, I was organizing a BUFORA conference in Birmingham and
You've qlso reseorched qlien qbducfions. Whqt's your view on this conlnoversiql oreo? Something is definitely happening, but I'm not sure that it's alwayslittle green men whisking people off into space.I believe the abduction experience is investigatedin avery'either... or' manner: investigators, skeptics, scientists - whoever - tend to see claims of abduction as either an alien kidnapping or a hallucination, which is a very narrow set of parameters Hqve you reqched ony firm conclusions on to work with. Rather than looking for evidence of an lhe exislence of UFOs- do you think, for external third party, like an alien craft, investigators exomple, there qre cover-ups go:ng on? should concentrate more on the 'internal' phenomena \A/hile conspiracy theories can be very compelling, I - the beliefs of the individuals concerned in abduction. think it highly unlikely that there's global secrecyon The frequency and similarities in people claiming to the subject - someone would have spilt the beans by have been abducted by aliens leads me to think that now if there was indisputable there is a kind of global psychosis evidence out there. I think there is going on, a sharedconsciousness. a cover-up of ignorance, rather the origins of which could be DespitetheFreedomof than suppression of the truth. If terrestrial as well as extraterrestrial. Information Act, papers are This isn't to saythat abduction governments are interested in UFOs - as I believe the evidence beingwithheld.I{o rational claims are alwaysimaginationshows- it's because they want personcan claim there'sno there is definitely something accessto that technology for fascinating going on which science goaernnxentcouer-up military and commercial use. just doesn't yet understand. Intelligence agencieswould therefore have an interest in Do you think lhere's ony keeping any information they might have secret from weight to qbducfion testimonies gcined each other, but as yet I don't think they have any hard from hypnotic regression methods? evidence to keep secret. They're as much in the dark I'm very suspicious of the regression techniques used as most people, and it's this ignorance - this lack of to extract evidence of alien abduction. Indeed, in evidence - that's covered up. 1988 I was instrumental in arrangine a moratorium saw a book for sale on UFOs that was badly researched and badly written. The author, an American, was going to write next about the British UFO experience, based only on press cuttings. I was appalled that someone with such limited knowledge of the subject could do this, and wrote off to his publisher to say so. Most publishers would have thrown my letter in the bin. This one invited me to write the book. It was pure luck.
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Do you think certqin UFOlogisrsore keen to perpetuote the myfh of cover-ups? Yes,sometimes they are. Conspiracy theories are perpetuated by the commercial end of the UFO community, keen to turn out dramatic stories and cash in on the current climate of suspicion and paranoia. This sensationalism creates a real danger where any old rubbish can get published ro boost salesand ratings. Then, if the story is later discredited, it helps to demean serious research. This is the opposite of the cover-up of ignorance - it is the active marketing of nonsense. Both add to the pool of misinformation and disinformation surrounding UFOs. Whilst BUFOR{ is a sober research group whose work I largely respect, the dangers of commercialism were becoming apparent and it's one of the reasons why I have now left their council. The power politics that appeared on the horizon scared me. However, there are some excellent people within BUFORA whose ideals I support, and I remain a loyal member of the association.Indeed, I'm optimistic that today's council will see things more clearlv in the future.
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How should poronormol reseqrch be for BUFORA which banned its use - the only UFO developed do so. in the future? group in the world to I have found that emotion is the key to that question; There are dangers with regression hypnotherapy. that often paranormal phenomena are triggered by If you have someone who genuinely believes they an emotional need in the subconsciousmind. Thus, have been kidnapped by aliens, who visits a in order for tests to be successful,you have to researcher who genuinely wants to prove that aliens produce the emotional stimulus, The way to establish abduct people, all kinds of self-fulfilling prophecies these tests is by long-term co-operation with the can be established. It becomes easy,through individuals involved, ideall-vin regression techniques and a ce rtain line of que s ti o n i n g ,to association with psychologists or psychiatrists. generate 'memory' from fantasy. I know ofa researcher with no The danger is that Some people don't like the medical backgrolnd who involvement of doctors. It makes LlFOlogyis slipping from the hypnotized a six-year-oldalleged gresp of the UPO cornmunity them thi nk that they are i nsane. abductee in the US, which I think or that we - as researchers- are and becominga plaything is totally unethical. doubting their saniry. However, of marketforces The dangers were also most witnessesare certainly highlighted by the so-called satanic sincere and not mentally deluded. child abuse casesa few years ago Psychologistshelp to keep things balanced and objective. when the evidence for allegations was later proved My own specialist area is investigating claims of to result from suggestivemethods of regressive paranormal experiences, and the psychologists I hypnotism. A lot of damage was done to many work with are dedicated to understanding the families as a result of spurious evidence obtained workings of the human psyche. Often we attempt to by these methods. discover the truth behind paranormal experiences by investigating the individual's belief in that Why hos reseqrch into the pqrqnormql generolly fqiled lo come up with definirive experience. It can take months, even years - I've qnSwers? been working with one alleged abductee since the mid 1970s;it all depends on the person involved. Becausethe laboratory experiments that have been just The mind will give up information at its own rate. devised don't stimulate people. In the real world You can force information out by intrusive you see casesof ESP happening when it needs to techniques like hypnotherapy, but I believe it's best occur - in times of danger or distress,for example. fbr people to confront and understand therr This is what we should be concentrating on. Scientific experiences in their own time. Real memory, experiments in labs have failed to provide conclusive how ever l ong i t takesto arri ve. w i ns over answers, so we have to find a new way. We need to stimulated hypnotic memory any day. perfect experiments that work in the real world.
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aptain James T. Kirk steps up to the transporteq nods at his chief engineer, and says re the fateful words: 'Energize, Mr Scott.'A moment later, the USS Enterpriseexplodes, as a beam of pure energy, equivalent to the force of 1,000 one-megaton hydrogen bombs, rips through its hull, tearing the vesselapart - its captain, crew and contents sucked into the soullessvacuum of space. It never happens like that in Sl,ar Treh,but that, according to physicists,is how it would happen in real life. This cataclysmiceffect woulcl result directly from the energy released in trying to vaporize Captain Kirk's body with a 'transporter beam'. But even before Kirk is vaporized, the transporter would
have to scan every atom in his body. However, there are roughly 10" in total (that is, 1 followed by 28 zeros). Quite apart from the formidable task of storing this impossibly large volume of information, and the time it would take to retrieve it, a law of quantum mechanics (the minuscule world of subatomic particles that underpins physical reality) makes it impossible to read the configuration of these atoms accurately in the first place. AR T
OF
TH E
P OS S IB TE
Although Professor Lawrence Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University, and author of I'he Physicsof Star ZreA,cites the transporter as probably the most ' implausible' technological device
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involves lighr-speed lrovel, onlimol{er power ond tronsporter beoms - oll of which, soys Lowrence Krquss in his book, Ihe Physics of Stor lrek (inset),
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on board the Enterprisa,he goes on to say that not all the effects in sci encefi cti orrare i rnpossi b le.I n l act. many turn out ei ther to be enti rel y possi bl eor l o have occurred alreadr'. Onlv 100 yearsago,.fulesVerne u' asri di cul ed for the very i de a of space travel, and H.C. Wells' concepl ol ti me travelw as taken
2 Snip" thot hove the power to lrqvel vosi interstellqr distonces, fike rhose fuirtured in lndependence Day, ane cvrrenily woy beyond our rechnologicol skills. According lo fhe Theory o{ Relativi?y devised in | 91 5 by Albert Einirein (inset), nothing con move foster thon 3OO,OOOkm per second, the speed of light. According to this principle, ir would foke a spocecroft powered by our conventionol meons mony yeors lo rovel the vost dislonces ocross lhe universe. However, ihere is nothing fo soy thot olien civiliiotions hove not found woys oround this problem using exotic fuel supplies or qdvonced knowledge of the fobric of spoce-lime. In focl, olthough our presenl know-how oullows deep spoce lrovel, mony scientists hove qcknowledged thor it is theorelicolly possible.
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for what it was - pure fantasy.But today, space travel is one of science'smost shining examplesof fact mirroring fiction, and time tra vel is t hought b y s o me s c i e n l i s l s to be possible - in theorl', at least. Our achievements in space exploration since the 1960shave been remarkable, although the,vdo n (J tm eas ur eup lL )l h e ro rrfi n e interstellar flights that are the stock-in-trade of outer-space sciencefiction. Nor is there much likelihood of this happening for a very long time.
Interstellar travel would involve travelling inconceivably vast distances.Our galaxy alone, for example, is approximately 100,000 light yearsacross.This means that it would take at least a 100,000 years, travelling at the speed of light - 300,000krn per second to get from one end of the galaxy to the other.
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The main dralvback is that Einstein'sTheory of Relativity rules that nothing rvith masscan
travel faster than the speed of light; but travelling at just below light speed, it wor,rldstill take years to reach even the nearest stars. Another problem is 'time dilation'. Clocks on the spacecraft w oul d sl orl dow n the neare r it s velocity reached the speed of light. Frrl ureasl ronaul sretttrtti n g t o Earth would Iind that man,v hundreds or even thousands ofyears had passedsince they left, much as Charlton Heston did in the film The Planet of theApes. Although this rvould seem to plrt
a dampener on would-be long-haul spacefarers,all is not lost. In theory, it appears that it is possible to travel faster than the speed of light compared to distant objects, while staying still in relation to your immediate surroundings. To do this you would need to create a'warp drive' by manipulating spacetime - the fourdimensional universe consisting of Iength, breadth, height and time so that the spacebehind you suddenly expanded by a huge amount while the spacein front of
you shrank or collapsed. Provided the space around your starship and at your destination was not disturbed, then, literally, in next to no time at all, and involving virtually no physical movement, you would arrive at your destination with all clocks synchronized. SP AC E
E X P TOR A TION
Mathematically, this is all very well, but to 'bend' spacetime in this way depends on there being the correct balance of matter and energy in the universe to create
the huge gravitational fields that would be needed. Scientistsadmit, however, that they simply do not know if this is the case. The problems of interstellar travel are light-years ahead of the kind of technological challenges that are likely to face us in the short-term. Among possible projects for the not-too-distant future are the development of lunar basesfor research and the exploitation of resources (oxygen, for example. can be easily harvested from the lunar soil).
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$ elade Runner deols wirh purpose-built ondroid 'repliconts' lhot perform the dongerous qnd nqtty iobs thor no-one else wonls to do. Hqlf of the fechnology necessory for rhis is olreody possible. 'MANNY' (inser) is oble lo simulote sweoling ond breofhing, qnd is used in the US to tesf fire-fighting clothing ond spoce suits. This fype of reseorch is obviously too dongerous lo qtlemPt on humqns. Unlike lhe repliconls in Bfode Runner lhqf leorn to feel emofion, geneficolly engineered personolities ore nol yef possible. Psychologislscloim thot personolity is the result of sociol bockground, upbringing, life experiences, educoiion ond numerous olher fqctors, most of which qre outside the confines of science.Moleculqr biology qnd neurosciencemoy be oble to tell us why some people hove brown hoir, but they cqnnot exploin the bosis for on individuol's personolity.
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A moon base could also be used as a stopping-off point on manned missions to Mars. In the long-term, scientiststhink that if the carbon dioxide in the rocks of Mars ('fixed' as carbonates, like limestone rocks on Earth) could somehow be released into the atmosphere, the resulting greenhouse effect, which causes global warming on Earth and Venus, could gradually lead to the whole planet reaching tolerable temperatures. Eventually, the planet might be suitable for fbrms
of life adapted to high levels of carbon dioxide (such as plants) and cold temperatures. \i\rhether we humans would want to go there, though, is a different matter. And whether we could afford to, given the enormous costs of space travel, is another consideration. TIME ' S
A R R OW
Time travel has been a basic i ngredi ent of countl esssci ence fiction films and novels, but ever since Stephen Hawking turned his attention to the subject, it has
acquired a certain respectability. According to the eminent professor, time travel rnay be a possibility, but only in the vicinity of black holes. These are stars that have srown so large - about 1,000 times heavier than our own sun that their gravity makes them collapse into themselves.Their name comes from the fact that their gravitational pull is so powerful that not even light can escapefrom them. In theory, if two black holes were to link up they would form a
wormhole - a kind of tunnel in spacetime, as in the Star Trek series DeepSpaceltline. It would then be possible to travel through such a w o rm h o l e to another poi nt i n space and time. tIF E
OU T
TH E R E
In practice, howeveq the gravitational force of each black hole would not only break the link between them before you could get through, it would tear you apart before you even entered the wormhole. Scientistsbelieve this
could be prevented if the holes were jammed'with matter that exerts an anti-gravitational force, although no one knows how to generate this to order. A neat device often used by science fiction writers to counteract the technological problems of crossing vast distances in space is to have intelligent aliens visit us. This assumesthat the visiting extraterrestrials have acquired the technology to overcome the obstaclesimposed by the laws of physics.
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,,,Molt,:scientistsare now willing to 1r,,11,,1 l:...,.!Cc,qpt-ttteidea that there is ot.her else in the -:;:.:,:r'rlifu'.somewhere lverse. Their belief is inspired by ,jr,.l 1ilttth. tu* of Very Big Numbers - with s ofgalaxies, each ning billion s o f s ta rs .l h e :s,of there being at least planet capable of
realiqr any threat of invasion' is likely to come - in the foreseeable future at least - more from minuscule organisms rather than 'super-beings'. The question of possible contamination is being taken very seriously in the design of a manned space flight to Mars, planned for the 21st century. If
33 le lasfronqmers are regularly :,:,.'''t:discoveringstars which they reckon Otnets orbiting them' The ,:;,,.,,,h". among astronomers rs ,::::::.:ii:con!ensus th at it will only be a ma tte r o f ti me )efore more are identified.
UTE ORGANISMS te what sort of lile thesc will sustain, however, is ible to know. In science , the focus tends to be on
r the visiting aliens' ntions are benign (as in the buster film ET1 or hostile (as IndependenceDay).
*iair.l:.g",the discoveryof life on Mars l.:ln,Augrttt 1996,in the form of ancient bacteria.suggeststhat in
Scienceficfion suggesfs ideos thof fhqf scientists incorporofe into their theories bul somefimes sc:ence furns up nofions slronger thon ony fiction Physicist StephenHowking,Theoreticol
f f int n there might be some sort of life out there, the intention is to bring it back to Earth under controlled conditions - rather than stuck to somebody's boot. If there are indeed intelligent aliens 'out there' with the means of looking into deep space, the chances of them findinq us are
rare, even if thev knerv in which sector of the universe to look. The vast distance from which they would be observing Earth means that they would be seeing life as it happened millions of years ago, long before homosapiensappeared. In effect, this rules out the idea of alien invasions or abductions for an indefinite period, unless, of course, the 'aliens'visiting us are time travellers from our own planet's future.
H M r r LESS POSSr Br jl r r _ES Even if in reality deep space turns out to be a frontier too far for our scientists,science fiction has ventured into a number of other worlds (such as bionics, genetic engineering and artificial intelligence) to offer a tantalizing glimpse of what the future might hold in store for us. If many of these ideas seem far-fetched at the time, this is no reason to suppose that they will not happen absolutely. As Professor Krauss admits, scientistshave been proven wrong rvhen assumrng E._. 'absolutes'in rhe pasr. U$
hemical and biological weapons are some of the most terrifying tools of mass destruction known to man. Cheap and easy to produce, they -have the ability to decimate the enemy, poison crops and ensure generations ofdisease and deformig' for those lucky enough to survive. All this comes,at a fraction of the cost of atomic weaponry and without the need for massivetroop deployment. By late 1947, US intelligence was well on the way to attaining these apocalyptic weapons, having obtained first-hand evidence of the effects of numerous biological agents on humans - including A.rnerican prisoners of war - from secret deals with Unit 731, Japan's biological warfare (BW) team. and its leader. Shir6 Ishii. The horror stories told by surviving American POWs were covered up to spare Ishii and his staff 'embarrassment', and Western authorities granted full immunity
to those involved with Unit 731 so they could learn from their g ruesome experi ments w i thout outraging public decency. As a Pentagon report in December 1947 coldly states: 'Such information could not be obtained in our own latr oratories because of scruples attached to human experimentation. These data were acquired with a total outlay of $250,000 to date, a mere pittance...'
I Gnorled trees ore oll thol remoin in on oaeo' Vietnom dusred with defoliont Agent Oroi The biologicol worfo techniques used in
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For this 'pittance', the British and US governments obtained comprehensive details of the effects of BW on humans. They also received accounts of live autopsies, dissections and experiments on foetuses and young babies. The symptoms of plague, typhoid, venereal diseases, smallpox, gangrene, salmonella, scarlet fever, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and
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countless other agonizir-rsdiseaseswere also carefully documer)ted ancl handecl over. The fact that the \{est allorved Ishii whose crimes were on par rvith sorne of thc rvorst Nazi war criminals - to escapeprosecution is one of the darkcst secrets of \{brld \{hr II, and rvas withhelcl as classified inlbrmation for or.er 30 I'ears. Armed rvith the knorvledge of' exactll u,hich diseases rn:rcle iclearl B\\' agents. \A/estern governmeuts began a shocking
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progr.unnre of 'dumrny' attacks on some of theil orr'n rnajor cities to establish the most e l l c r t i r t r r e l l l o d s o f m a s s c o n t a m i lta ti u l r . \\-ith the onset of the Cold \\rar in the 1!150s.the Perrtagon became rvorried that a Rtrssian submarine
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After six of these 'mock' att:rcks.it rr"asconch.rdedthat 300 km sq of the San Friucisccr area had been infectecl. titl-r almost the entire population - sonre80{).000- havins breathed in the bactelia. Tl.re cxperiment proved that a rnajol US citv rr"astotalll' unable to defend itself againstnrasscotltamination froln lr'ind-bornebacteria. By the late 1950s,the US,\-mr.'had also conducted fi el d tests i n S ar , anr r : r h, (J.eorgia, and Atrn Park, Florida. Vast numbers of mosquitoes were clropped from aircraft into resiclentialareas- a Unit
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731 technique. Local residents suffering under swarms of the insects fell ill, while others died. Following this, US military p e rsonnel - masq u e radi ng as publ i c h e a lth offi ci al s- put each victim through a s e ri es of medi cal te s ts. A l though the details remain classifi e d , i t i s bel i eved the mosquitoes were inlected with a strain of Yellow Fever - a virus that causeshigh temperature, vomiting, and death in one in three sufferers. Further tests to ascertain a ciq"s \.ulnerability to biological attack were performed rhroughout the 1950sand 1960sin Britain,
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33 tr I will never forget whof h e l o o ke d l i ke ... he could not lie down, he could not see. His eyes, like mine, were ierking erroticolly Don Bowen,FormerUS Servicemon
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conflicf, rhe US cloimed thol the use of Agen! Oronge to destroy lungle cover wos nor illegol becquse defoliqnts were not outlowed by the | 925 Genevo Protocol. Opponenfs to the wor orgued thot the indiscriminole deslruclion of vegelolion wos o colculoted ot?empt to
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Canada and the US, culminating in an assault on New York City in 1966. Topsecret Army agents of the Chemical Corps Special Operations Division sprayed the bacteria Bacillus into subway stations via gratings at peak commuter times. Turbulence from the trains proved to be an ideal way to rapidly spread the germs throughout the city.
roofsat night. Theywokethe next morning to cliscover a largenumber:tut..1:":lot them dead and many of them with fractured legs. Panic stricken. the villagers ,-. killed and burned all but four. Tests con- -.' ducted on one surviving vole showed it was ' inlected with the plague. Such was the furore caused by this and
other i nci denl s.that an i nternati onalbody was formed to investigate.Their findings, ptrblished in the Report of the International ScientfficCommissionfor the Facts Concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and China were damning. Reviewing the Min-Chungviltage incident, the report states:'There remains no doubt that a large number of voles suffering from plague were delivered to the district of Kan-Nanduring the night of April 4-5 1952, by the aircraft which the villagers, heard. This was identified as an Americanl F-82double-fuselagenight-fighter.' The US heatedl ydeni ed the al l egati ons. D E A TH
IN
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Biological warfare featured again in US i nvol vement i n V i etnam. D el ol i ants wer e used to stri p the j ungl e of the densevegel ati on rhal served as cover for the Viet Cong. Food crops were destroyed to starve and demoral i ze enemy sol di ersand t heir sympathizers.Approximately 26.000 variations of herbicides and defoliants were investigatedfor possible use in south-east Asia. From these. six were chosen to strip rhe jungle. These were known as Agents
poison crops ond inflicr storvolion. Survivors of the gossing, such os Vu Thi Lom (inset, centre), still suffer the effects, os do their children, mony of whom ore born with genelic deformities.
M U T U AT
D ES T R U C TION
It was estimated that the assault 'infected' up to a million people, and scientists concluded that again there was no way to defend against an enemy attack. With this knowledge, the US stepped up its research into offensive military applications - if it was impossible to survive an enemy attack, mutual destruction by means of massinfection should at least be guaranteed. Knowledge gained from covert domestic test programmes was not put to active military use until the Korean war. One incident concerned the Korean villagers of MinChung, who heard a plane flying over their
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Purple, Green, Blue. White. Orange and Pink after colour co ding on t heir co n ra i n e rsO . I all of these,Agent Orange was |-lt. most powerful, and was used to strip particularlydense
*.u, of u.j.intio,,. The chemicalwascomprisedof defoliant '-.' 245-T,rhe result o[ a Brirish deadly dioxint the combination accelerated growth in trees and bushes,leaving them crippled and rotting under their own weight. It also had terrible effectson humans. ' O per at ion Ra n c h H a n d ' ,I : -----1 succeeded in sprafng Agent Orange over an area roughly equivalentto the sizeo[ Israel. By the end of the campaign
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ingredient dioxin had been deposited over just Vietnam. (To put this into perspective. 85 g of the deadly toxin in the water supply of Washington DC is enough to kill the city's population.) Horrible deformities in newly born babies were reported, as was a three-fold increase in children born with cleft palates and spina bifida and a two-fold increase in srill-borns. In response to mounting evidence presented by Saigon doctors that the US had . - : programme in South-east an active -BW
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Asia, the Pentagon insisted that the nse of chemicals to destroyjungle vegetation did not violate any international agreemeltts. Despite this stance, it was obvious that the effects of the defoliants went much further than just denuding the jungle, and US opponents to the Vietnam war lobbied hard to end the use of Agent Orange. In L977, the government caved in to demands and the Biological Weapons Convenrion came into effect, outlawing BW on the grounds that it was 'repugnant to the conscience of mankind'. Experimentation, however, continued behind closed doors. FU TU R E
WAR
Today, the US government view proliferation in biological weapons with great unease.As the 'poor man's nuke', BW is an attractive and affordable option. During the Gulf War, the allied forces were extremely wary of B\\attacks, where the combination of hot weather and sweaty skin would make soldiers highly susceptible to biological agents. Prior to the invasion of Kuwait, it was known that Iraq had stockpiled numeror-rs BW weapons and was actively investigating a range of delivery systems. Weapons, including 28 SCUD missiles loaded with Sarin, 800 nerve agent aerial bombs, 60 tonnes of the nerve aqent Tabun and 250
A Victims of the Sorin gos oifqck on the Tokyo subwoy system loy dying in one of lhe stofions. Although lhe Aum Shinriyko secl, who were blomed for the gossing, ocquired sophisricoted weoponry from the Russiqn intelligence services in 1991, reseorchersore now <osting doubt over their involvemenf in the subwoy strike. A more powerful group, consisting of 'o Joponese group ond o foreign group' moy hove been responsible, using the gossing to either discredit qnd disbqnd the Aum secl, or divert oftenlion owoy from their reol inlentions.
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tonnes of mustard gas survived the massive allied bombins, and there is suspicion,following the BW strikes on the Iraqi sector of Kurdistan in the late 1980s, that Sadclam Hussein may have been experimenting with BW against allied forces. T ER R OR
IN
THE
SUBWAY
While the use of BW agents in a military context is in itself' alarming, there are fears that terrorists can gain access to these weapons and use them indiscriminately in dense population centres. One such recent event caused alarm around the world. The Tokyo subway Sarin attack in March 1995, purportedly by members of the Aum Shinriyko sect, resulted in 12
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V During rhe l98Os, British, Europeon ond Americon monufoclurers supplied Soddom Hussein's lroq with BW equipment ond chemicol precursors thot resulted in o horrific gos otfock on Kurds in Holobio on l7 Morch 1988, which left over 5,OOOpeople deod. Velerons relurning f rom rhe Gulf olso hod symptoms consistent with BW poisoning, olrhough the Wesf denies thot chemicqls were used ogoinst ollied forces.
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fatalities. Had the chemical mixture and dispersion system been slightly different, the death toll could have been in the tens of thousands. It is now known that the Aum sect was cledicated to a cataclysmic confrontation with the West ancl that the acquisition of BW may have been supplied by Russia, keen to win Japanese financial aid. The A u m s e c t, i t i s b e l i e ved, penetrated Russia'sdefence industries with the aicl of th e R rrs s i a ni n tc l l i g e rr<c s ervi ces. The rise of organized crime in Russia has raised fears in the West that BW knowledge could easily be exchanged on rhe b l a c k m a rk e t. T h e ti ny concenl ral es needed to mount an attack similar to the
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Tokyo subway incident are frighteningly easv to conceal. Developments in 'binary combinations', whereby two harmless chemicals can be combinecl into lethal agents, means that BW weapons could theorcti cal l ybe produccd bv arryorganizati on determi ned to do so. NEW
BREED
OF
W A R FA R E
It seems dor-rbtful that Britain and the US coul d have predi crt' dthcsc modern th r eat s of BW when they decicled to shroud the events of Unit 731 in secrecy.Yet experimentation with weapons of such destructi ve potenti al ,so soon after the devas lat ing strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sometimes defies belief. In laying the foundari ons for \4brl d !\' ar IIl . rhe West unleashed a new and horrific breed of death upon the world.
THESE,LF-HE.ALING
FoR ovER A THOUSANDYEARS,FOILOWERS
OFA MIooIe EnsrrnrusEcTHAVEBEEN PERFORMINGAMAZING FEATSWHITE IN A
TRANcE.NEw RESEARcH AIMs To DIscovER TH E S O UR C EO F T H E I RPOWERS n the mid-l9th century, in a town in northern Kurdistan in Iraq, Sheik Abdul Carim : was instructed by his Sufi dervish master to go on a retreat into the mountains. He did so, and was not heard from for two years. His family assumed he was dead. T hen. one nigh t. C a ri m appeared to his brother in a dream and revealed his whereabouts. The next day his family went up to the mountain and fetched him home. It seemed that Carim had been communing with God during his tlvo-year retreat. A casnazan - a 'secret that no one knows' - had been given to him in deep meditation. From that point on his sect of Sufi dervishes would be known as Tariqa Casnazaniyyah * meaning 'the way that is known to n o one' . SP I RI T UA T
itself by bestowing on its followers - at the same time as they were initiated into the order - the power to inflict pain-free Deliberately Caused Bodily Damage (DCBD). This was followed with SRs,or Super Reactions - the instant healing of these wounds. Since the mid-l980s, Jamal N. Hussein, a young University of Baghdad graduate with a Ph.D in Physics,has attempted to shine the light of science on the healing reputation of the Tariqa. Hussein approached Sheik Muhammad al-Casnazani,the present Master of
S U F IS
Since the 6th century AD, the Sufis - an offshoot oflslam that focuses on the spiritual side of the prophet Mohammed's teachings - have demonstrated their powers by producing paranormal phenomena, often in the form of self-inflicted wounds that heal instantly and painlessly. The more recenl Tariqa Casnazaniyah sect began to define
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Tariqa Casnazaniyyah,and asked if he would allow some of his dervishes to undergo testing under strict laboratory conditions. Hussein's goal was to unlock the secretsof their paranormal healing powers. FU N D IN G
RESEARCH
To Hussein's delight, Sheik al-Casnazaniagreed to allow his dervishes to be tested and instructed his followers to volunteer for the experiments. The master was even willing to fund the experiments, at least until Hussein was able to obtain wider backing. Thus was born the Paramann Programme Laboratories (PPL), located in Amman,Jordan, where, beginning in 1988, a series of 50 experiments was carried out on 28 sect members. The results of those experi mentsare onl y j ust now becoming known to the West. The dervishes shoved unsterilized metal skewersand spikes through their cheeks,
to accept what they had been told in the first place. The self-healing. powers o[ the dervishes- which the dervishes had no control over and did not understand - had been given to them during their initiation into the order of Tariqa Casnazaniyyah. Religious instruction and the recitation of vows were part of the service, but these had nothing to do with the bestowing of DCBD powers. It was required only that a califa (one of a small number of carefully chosen 'deputies of the Master' empowered to crbate new dervishes) lay a hand on the initiate for three minutes, usuallv in the form of a
tongue, lower part of the mouth, lobe of the ear, neck, arms, chest and abdomen. They hammered daggers into the sides of their skulls and just below the eyes.They chewed and swallowed glass and sharp razor blades, placed red-hot plates between their hands and their teeth, laid burning brands against their faces, arms and legs for five to fifteen seconds,and exposed their tongues to the bites of poisonous snakesand scorpions. In every caseobserved by the researchers,the dervishes never once felt pain. The DCBD healed
and disappeared in a few seconds. Usually, a few drops of blood initially covered the wound; in rare instances a blood line of a few centimetres long appeared, then disappeared. No infections followed, even though unsterilized instruments had been used. The researcherscalled this instant healing Super Reaction (SR). IN
TOTA T
handshake.
C ON TR OL
'Before, during, and after their performances the dervishes remained entirely alert and able to respond consciously and promptly to external stimuli in the surrounding environment,' Dr Hussein says.'They were in complete command of their bodies. senses.and consciousness,and showed no loss of control, perceptual distortion, or any other indication of shift in their o normal consciousness.' I A wide range of o s physiological measurements also showed no deviation from E P n o rm a l i ty.N otabl y,l he sci enri sts observed no increase in the A Sheik Muhommod ol-Cosnozoni is presence of slow frequencies in the present Mosler of rhe self-heoling the EEG of the subjects. dervishes. He permitted the reseorch info the sect which hos led ro After months of intense cworeness in the Wesf of their powers. analysis,the researchershad
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Curiously, the dervishes could not heal themselvesif they had suffered an injury in the normal manner. The researchersalso discovered that a handful of their non-califa DCBD-empowered subjects- apparently those with very strong wills - could somehow temporarily force their powers on non-dervishes, even if the person d i d n ot want t hem . Th e s c i e n ti s ts dubbed this ability Sponraneous Transmission(ST). In a few cases,dervishes at the Paramann labs were able to instill these powers in non-dervish subjectspermanently. Sometimes dervisheswere also able to take away these powers - er-en frorn those to whom thev had not given them, and even,when the non-dervisheshad been performing their own brand of DCBD feats for years. In rare cases,non-dervishes who had received paranormal powers were able to bestow these powers on other non-dervishes. { Some Sufis ore -.$nown in the West qs 'ihirling dervishes, they donce into a sfqte of
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The Paramann researchers came slowly round to the conclusion - despite a crushing weight of literature insisting that these 'self-healing' powers must come from an altered state of consciousnessgenerated by the dervish himself - that they were dealing not with 'self-healing' but w i th ' o th e rs -heal i ng' . OU T SID E
FOR C E
The researchersobserved that the dervishesx'ere able to perform the DCBD feats equallr'n'ell rvhethel ther had received their po\rers a minr,rteor 20 r'e:rrs previouslr',u'hether ther-rverein a good state of health or a bad olle, whether they believed in the reality of the powers or not, and whether or not they had any need to perform them. It seemed that the performance of the feats had nothing to do with psychological and personal components such as knowledge and understanding of the DCBD process,motivation, belief or need. The fact that no changes whatsoever took place in the brains of the performing denishes suggestedthey were in the grip of a force that came from outside.
'\Arhatexcites me,' saysParamann associateDr. Shetha Al-Dargazelli, who received her doctorate in physicslrom Durham University, England, 'is that we may here be deal i ng w i th a ki nd of i nrel l i gent ---- Ja-
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Think of the possibiliries for firemen. Shudder ot the possibiliries for soldier s ond whqt fhof might do for the ombifions of milifory leoders Dr DonielJ. Benor,BritishPsychiotrist
,, -n\ healing energv that is qualitatively different from anything observed by science up till now.' Modern science has been loathe to investigate the kind of phenomena put on display by the Paramann laboratories. \Ahere it does so, the information received i s so contradi croryrhat i r suggest s the investigation of paranormal phenomena is completely lacking in anv kind of comprehensive conceptualbasi s.In papersand presentations, Paramann
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ForJamal Hussein and his colleagues, the tendency of Western science to try to explain away - or even to refuse to acknowledge the existence of DCBD feats - has combined with the uncertain political climate of the Middle East to make the PPL director's task a difficult one. So far,Jamal Hussein has presented the Tariqa Casnazaniyyahderrishes to audiencesat conferenceson the medical applicationsof loga in India; on alternatile medicine in Brazil and in the Crimea. in Russia;and on DCBDs and unconventional healins methods in Baghdad. The Amman-based scientist has continued to work torvards organizing a conference that would present DCBD feats to the W est,and he i s contacti rrger linenr
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: researchersat Durham and in Amman are seeking to begin to lay the groundwork for such a conceptual framework. To isolate and then control the secrets of the power behind Sufi dervish DCBDs would bestow vast - and potentially threatening powers upon humankind. And yet to enable everyone accessto the 'self-healing' powers of dervishes is indeed the ultimate goal of the scientists at the Paramann Programme Laboratories. D A U N TIN G
TA S K
LouayJ. Fatoohi, a graduate in physics at Durham University and a close associateofJamal Hussein, has said that'before being able to gain any degree of mastery over these abilities and employ them in medicine, a reasonable understanding of these phenomena must become much more accessible.'
I.
.ltlIt could well op en o new er q in med i c i ne, qnd consequently c oul d well be r esponsi bl e for unprecedenfed improvement in fhe welfore of humonity LouoyJ. Fotoohi,DurhomUniversity
E\' scientistswith a rierr' to forming an International Board of Researchers to conductjoint researcheson" DCBD feats. \\hat are his chances for successiThe progrrosisis indeed a difficult one, believes Hussein. It is, indeed. a'secret that no one knon's'. It is Hussein'shope that, on a mountain top in Northern Iraq some 150 years ago, it was decided that these self-healing powers should be given to the world. The 'secretthat no one knows', given by God to Sheik Abdul Carim Iraq and passeddown from master to master, is a continuing mystery.
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