The X Factor - Volume 12 (1996) by silent-realm

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sf lditorial:

Annable :!d*or traig Glenday Graham €oleman, Edirorial: l-ejacl 8en Way [dior:Ray Leaning LeeThompson Hqmphrei.s-Davies

Picture Research: SophieMortimer Editorial Asistant: GeorginaStewart !eniorProduction Controlhr: TerenceStrongman l'larketing: John Balmond lleadof Circulation: Chris Jenner

ACKiIOWLEDGEMEI'ITS authors: Peter Hough, Fergus Day, Vhite, Karl Shuker,Simon Richmond. hatures. Irank Pirtures. .lnser. .lpooner_ Picture Iibrary. Steve Lyne/Rex Johnston/l'1t like ro thankall thosewho helpedin dre

The X. Factor. fdrnondson, andtlre JaneJones BoydiDangeruus Obt 77-85 tu*ramPalace Rob{{t , loffreJScobii.

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hortly before Christmas 1995, tno l5-year-old schoolboyswere lured to the home of Londoner rn Davicl McCallum, a hear'y-metal music fan, to 'rvatchvideos'. The nr'o bol's were led to McCallum's bedroom, rvhich lvas littered with Iron N{aidenand Metallica records ar.rclbooks abor-rtthe mass mnrderer CharlesManson, and were told by the 20-year-old \'IcCalh,rm that he and his friend u'orshippecl the devil. hr the centre of the room stood a candlelit altar draped in a black clotl'r,and a Ouija board. Despite f'eeling Llneasl',the hvo boys \'Iichael Earriclge and Stephen

Cullan - agreed to take part in a seance,and rverejoined b1' McCallum's friend, rvhom rve shall c a l l ' D e n n i s' .

I The Ouiio boord is often people's first E =a honds-on experience of rhe occult. But for mony, rhis is rhe first siep on o

SP EA K

TH E

D E V IL

As the bo1,ssat around the m a k e s h i ftal tar atternpti ngto contact the dead, McCallum asked the Oulja board: 'If you are Satan, what is it you want me to do?' With growing uneaser the two 15-1'earo l d s d e c i ded to end l he sessi on. Br-rtbefore they could make their escape,McCallum received the answer to his question. response he got, \A,rhatever McCallum, suddenly brandishins a knife, pinned Earridse to the bed.

slippery slope lo depression, modness

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; fi

ond even deorh (inser). ,tn= F t; 'You are not goins anpvhere until I-,.,+:.. , have done rn1,master's rvill.' cried

,,...,.. 'i;;, . ,.'.1 '---, ' b c {a r r r t 'p c : r t c d l l s t a h b i n g E ar r i d g e

his friend Dennis. McCallum then rvith the 3,0cmcombat krrife. The frenzied attack, in which

' 'i\ti

Earridge was stabbed eleven times..,...

endcd onl r uhcrr D errrri s w hi spered' S top norv.D al i d. You can be calm. He's deacl.' Luckily, Clullan escapedwith his life. The

{ Michael Eorridge wos the victim of mockriruol killing by Dovid McGollum (below), who of?en used o Ouiio boord ond cloimed to communicqte with ,the Devil,.

Ouijs A The Ouiio boord hos olwoys been morkeled os o t

gome ond, despite pnessure

fiom Christiqn gnoups, con

ff#tffrm waswrapped in bedclothes at a block of flats

Gomes, cloim their boords can be used by people fiom the E

= :

oge of eighr upwords (insetl.

;; wooden board with the letters

z of the alphabet arranged along p

-east London.

um was arrested and lor the killing. Bur he was nol charged with murder; claiming that voicesin his head made him do it, he receiveda charge of manslaughter,and was senl to Broadmoor. a high-securirylaciliry the criminally insane. was obviously by the macabre and the - much of tlre music he to contained lyrics

srill be bought in toyshops. Mqnufoclurers, such qs Porker .

involving satanic rituals, and scrawled on his television in marker pen were the words 'Devil Man killer. 666 Slayer.Iron Maiden'. But was his obsessionwith the Ouija board responsible for turning the Z0-year-oldinto a killer? The Ouija - which takes it name from the French 'oui' and German ja', both meaning 'yes'usually consists of a flat polished

the edge in a semi-circle. On to this is placed a small, heartshaped board on castersor felt. 'Players' place a finger on this pointer, which moves apparently of its own accord - or on the direction of the dead - and spells out the answers to questions asked of the Ouiia. Interestingly, the Ouija board was never officially intended as a tool to contact the dead. Although the ancient Egyptians were known

tt.lQThe words speh ouf by rhe Ouiio qre often concerned with deoth .q o ond blood. There's q I morbid curiosity... deoth T o hqs some kind of lure o GordonWright,Counsellor for OccultVictims

tB\ -

to have used a similar device to contacl thei r ancestors- a ring suspended on a piece of thread was held over a board etched with symbols, and the dead supposedly spelled out their messages- the board as we know it today was invented as a 'parlour game'. It

Hw drr rhe OUIJA* Smrd wrki y,,u,.rll r' \0*c til \Jgherher 'r Wr"'1, l u \ i a \ k r t a {u c {i i , n *ill reveal ri lou,

( )l llA h" r',i 'hcl l ) ( v\'l i l \i r l c 'rcll'-filrr ( ) r ',tl r -

srrhconscious.Yel there are caseswhere the Ou'1jahas reoortedlv revealed i known to any of the pa Andjudging from the n caseswhere the use of the lelt playerstraumatizedand mentally disturbed, there is the 'game' than just muscle

r n . l u '. r r t t.' se < w h .r t r r N $ cl

Y , , u a n . l t . , u r F n i l n r 'r \ t r i l r t , t - f, N r r r ' .r Jr - ,l r l n l r '.r r J. u r r l r r ' 'u r I r r ,ctn ''r t.r { l l , r r c J l 'r l , r l t , 'r , r l t n n - 'r g e r t r J r r l t 'r '( \ r t 'l ) ,r r 'N l '/,IR \r r i {r h r r l , 'n r l x ' r nr l r ( r .r r h r r r l '' .r r r .l u a r r t. I th " r n ,l t r r 'r iun..t,r,,,. '. n Will llrroilgh its frre*atga sindr)w to movc and l*girr to rereal the rnrtrr . o r $ fl l l ",tn i t c l l v o u Y 8 5 . . . o r N O l Wi l i i t {i vt vo u a N U Il BER

For

brouglt rheir qucrticls to tlre l)UIJA hranl rr re\;e,rl'rs l.cru&n rou-.rnJ rh.:

l n Jn r n ,r kr remove J!$l [nJ mdiihrr.

not

GATEWAY

Ages 8 to Adult

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E .Y (J

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was the brainchild of William and Isaac Fuld of Baltimore, Maryland, who went into production of the boards in 1898. With the advent of the rr,vo world wars, the demand for Ouija boards increased - owing to the need for widows to contact their husbands killed in combat - and the Fuld brothers could barely keep up with demand. Then, in 1966, the US games manufacturer Parker Brothers bought the rights to the board, and it has been estimated that 25 million have since been sold acrossAmerica and Europe. MIN D

OVER

M AT T E R ?

Significantly, the Ouija falls under the category of paranormal phenomena that can be easily simulated. And even when not faked, there may be other explanations.James Randi, the stage magician who is sceptical of all claims of the paranormal, has suggestedthat natural and involuntary muscle twitches known as ideomotor actions are responsible for the movements of the oointer across the board.

However, to many researchersand to those dabblers who have experimented themselveswith the Ouija - it seems doubtful that these slight spasmswould cause a hand to move over the Oulja board and spell coherent sentences.Also, this theory presupposes that any messagesreceived through the Ouija would come from the user's

TO HELL?

It may be only a game, but to the Ouija is considered a dangeroustool w hen used i n wrong hands. David Farrant, of the British Psvchic and Society.viewsthe Ouija as a gateway to powerful] forces. 'lf you tap into these entities using the Ouija wi know i ng w hat you are doi ng,

.,i

can literally come to life anr

possessionof whoever is tr .: contact them.' Farrant's casebook is new spapercutti ngsand j ourn reportsdetai l i ng the mi suseof Ouija. 'These forces actually \Ahen I've been involved in the use of rhe Oui i a, i t' s been done properly, under controlled conditions. You need to be

Mattie that she should kill her father to allow her mother to marry'a cowboy'. SP EL T IN G

D IS A S TE R

In a more recent case,yet another 15-year-old,Colin Roberts, was found hanged from a tree in the grounds of a Belfast church after the Devil allegedly spoke to him . through the Ouija. The last thing he told his friends before killing "t i himself was that he had made a ! pu., with the Devil and 'had a party j to go to'. This episode camejust

with supernolurol lhemes such Friday rhe l3th and, more recently, Play 3, hove been blomed for deoth ond the occult, ond disturbed ond unstoble over the edge.

l,u^r.o into rhe occul(.aud

=33 *-

I felt os r hough I' d ch o n ged ond begon to h e q r voices telling m e fo ki l l my por ents. l' ll never dobble in the occult qgqin. Anonymous Teenoger ofterOuijo Session

*\ " ..

,, Far r anl' sobs erra ti o n ss e e m to I be borne out bv over hall a centu ry o f [a ta] ca s es .O ne oF r he

r epor t ed c laimso f p o s s e s s i o n the Ouija comes fiom 15-year-oldMattie s hot and k i l l e d h e r l a rh e r. rme' of Ouija with her â&#x201A;ŹR the 'spirits' spelled out to

one month after goats were found slain in a nearby Catholic church on rhe night of a full moon. But are these casesevidence that the Ouija opens the floodgates for marauding entities to accessthe living world, as some claim? In the caseof Mattie Tr.rrley,a more obvious explanation for her

actions is that her mother moved the pointer herself and spelled the instructions to Mattie to kill her father. With her husband dead, the mother was free to marry her 'cowboy'lover. Howeveq in the case of Colin R oberts.al l reports pai nt a p icr ur e of an intelligent, pragmatic teenager who was in no way schi ,,ophreni c or suFferi ngf r om any other mental illness. So could Roberts have really used the Ouija board to contact the Devil? Father Dominic Walker, a psychologist and former advisor on exorcism to the Bishop of Southwark, claims to have dealt with over a thousand people whose lives have been affected by the paranormal. 'I don't believe that Ouija boards contact spirits,' Father Dominic told The X Fnctor,

'br.rtI do believe that they contact material in our minds, which is why they're so dangerous.' Many other psychologistsand psychiatristsagree that dabbling in th e o cc ult c an be da m a g i n g to anyone who is potentially unstable mentalll'. 'I'r'e spoken to many adults and children who have attempted suicide or have mutilated themselves,' states Cordon Wright, a counsellor for occult victims. 'They have clescribednot an impulsive act but something they feel almost drawn to like a masnet. It becomes obsessional:something they almost have to do. And this has been linked to the occult.' L'r his sround-breakins book, Da rtgerousObsession.s, writer and researcherAndrew Boyd also qnestions the paranormal power of

the Ouija. By conducting

one of the

largest survevs on the role of the occult in socief,', Bovd has concluded that'sorne individtrals who step into the occult, l'ith its illdefined, confirsing and often contradictorv

concepts of realitl,',

mav lose themselves rvithin a sllperlratural shaclon'lancl of mvth, magic arrd morbiclinl Thev mav r,r,ell be u,orking to activelv undermine their or,n psvcholoeical well-beins.'

INSANITY

CTAUSE

On the whole, it can be arguecl that the lessstable members of the community are those affected most bv their clabblins in the occult. Dr (leoffrey Scobie, a psvchologist fiom the University of Glasgorv,sums up the debate: 'highly suggestiblepeople, about ten per cent of the population, are

puttins thenrseivesat risk from . their psvcholosicalpowers.' But does he l ul c orrl rhe possi bilir y that a ' spi ri t rvorl d' coul d be responsible for the dangers? 'I don't preclude that as a possibiligv,'he claimed. 'People who are al readypsrchol ogi cal l on y t he border are those r'r,hotend to become r,'ictims.For such people, dabbling rvith Ouija boards can become an acldiction.' For marrl peopl e. the obsession with the occult h:rs gone beyond playing r,r,itha Ouija. Incleed, it has become a rvayof life or a profession . - a religion every bit as valid as Christianity or Islam for the particip:rnts.

: Itr lhr

ttctt issirr. IHE PARANORI4-AL

t'tttminn uhrtl hrtppens tt,hcndnbhlersin lhr ,ttt'rrll lrrrtt ln .\ntnnistn,blnrh magzc atrd tltc sctiottstlQrh ttrls'

ry s*rur*

pr CHEMICATS BEING iD T O OU R D R I N K I N G SINISTER

Evrosncr STS THAT WE ARE MEDICATED SECRETTY DRUGSTHAT MODIFY OUR BEHAVIOUR f it was suggested to you that, without your knowledge, you were being regularly medicated with a subI

stan ce more pois onous t han lead.

could lead to brittle bones, cancer rd a c at alogueof o th e r i l l n e s s e sa. n d i s a t r al ingr edient i n m i n d -a l te ri n gd ru g s . would pr obab l l b e m o re th a n a l i l l e a rm ed. Y et t his i s w h a t s o me q u a l i fi e d t or s and healt h a d v i s o rsa re a l l e g i n g i s h a p pening t o m illi o n s o l p e o p l e i n th e U K a n d ar ound t he wo rl d . T h e o ffe n d i n g s u b stance?Fluoride in our drinking water. .Most of us know fluoride as the 1950s i:.discoverythat was to save teeth from decay. wasadded to most UK toothpastesin 970s ,s uppos e d l yto re d u c eu n p l e a s a n r Idhood visits to the dentist. Yet there is a sinister side to fluoride's history.

TH DECAY ...: t .,

Er'idence suggests that fluoride can . haiden the surface enamel of teeth, but the chemical is also highly toxic, and has -b e e n link ed t o a la rg e n u m b e r o f p h y s i c a l a n d m ent al ailm e n rs . Pu b l i s h e d s tu d i e s h a ve s hown t hat h a l f th e a m o u n r o f fluoride currenrlv added to UK drinki n g wat er ( hex afl u o ro s i l i c i c a c i d ) c a n .u.lr. g.,-r"tic damage.

Since

World

War

research has gone

into

lethal effects of fluoride. ber

|||lf d

s c ient is t s ,

II,

no the

thorough potentially

However, a num-

inc lu d i n s

Hans

Moolenbursh, one of the most vocal anti-fluoride campaigners in the Netherlarrds, are deeply c o n c e rn e d th a t marry countr.i es in the West are in effect enforcO4 ing a clangerous and sinister mass-medication scheme first $ developed in Nazi Germany. During the darkest days of World \A/ar II, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were exterminated in German and R u s s i a n c o n c e ntrati on camD S . Death from disease,starvation and extreme brutality was an everyday occlrrrence, and this was regularly compounded by the use of drugs and chemicals.Nazi scientists,keen to maintain a climate of fear, had found an easy method of controlling th e b e h a ri o u r o f c a m p i nmates.

| ||udGUUg

nffi$## BR AIN

o ai o o

ulations once their corrnlries had been

i nvaded by Germarr forces. A nti cipar victory in the war. the German chem man ufacturers

I. G. Farben,

b a se d

Frankl urt, became responsi bl efor m produci ng fl uori de for the death car and other possi bl efuture uses.

MIND

GtOBAt

CONTROT

A t the end of \A orl d \A ar l [, the US sent Charles Eliot Perkins, a research worker in:. chemistry, pathology and physiology, to... study the mind-control technology of I. G. Farberr. P erki ns drew several shocking

33 1$ The reol purpose behind woter fluor idotion is to reduce the resistqnce of fhe mq s s e s t o d o min q t io n qn d

control qnd loss of liberfy ChqrlesEliotPerkins, ChemicolEngineer .

D R AIN

Repeated doses of very small amounts of fluoride were discovered to affect the brain, slorvly poisoning and narcotizins people, making them submissive.Eager to exploit the effects <-rfthe drug, both Cerman and Russian camp commanders added fluoride to water supplies. The effects of fluoridated rvater greatly imoressed German and Russian intelli-

gence. They corrsi deredfl uori dated wat er the i deal means of control l i nS {ti 1a . non

conclusions from his investigations in Germanl,'. He reporteci that 'when the.'* Nazis, under Poland...

Hitler,

the Cerman

decided Ceneral

to go Staff

the R ussi anGeneral S taff exchang ed scientific and military ideas, plans sonnel and the scheme of mass c or through water

t{ ***i* ;;&:fl*

medication was seized upon by Russran Communists because it fitted ideally into their plans to communize the world...' ..., Perkins did not clirectly implicate Nlied inteltigence in his investigation of Russian goUat mind control, but a closer investigati o n of I . G . F ar b e n a n d i h e i r i rrd u s tri a l re l a t ionst hr ows up s o m e s rrs p i c i o u si rrte rnational conr)ecrit-lns. ...

" * *' '

) Young survivors of the Auschwitz concentrolion comp owoif their releose os Allied forces liberote lhe Nozi's prisoners. The Germons ond the Russions'doctored' rheir deorh comps' woter supplies with

B A C K IN G .WE S T E RN r":::' '"I. G. Farben expanded massively in the 1 9 2 0s as it m er s e d rv i th th e \A ' a l l Stre e t co n c er ns ol t he l i k e s o l H e n ry F o rd ' s motor company, f. P. Morgan's General Motors and Stanclard Oil, o'u,ned bv the Rockefeller famill. Millions of US dollars \,vereinvestecl in : these concerns in the 1930s,and this rela' tionship continued throughout \{orld \1rar II. Coincidentallv, it is interestins to note . that no I. G. Farben factories or plants bombed, sabotageclor even damagecl rwere by the Allies during the war. It has been .' cl a i m ed bv r es ear c h e ra rrd a rrth o r Ia n E . Ste p hens t hat s pe c i fi c i n s trtrc l i o n s rre re given to bombing mission commanders, possibly from the higher levels of the US government, to avoid these buildings. But for what reason? ; :Since the US economic depression of the late 1920s, organizations sr.rchas the

fluoride, which ocfed qs q sedolive ond kept the prisoners possive. Despite rhis legocy, fluoridoted woter is still promoled in counlries oround the world todoy (below). Fluoride is olso used os on qcfive ingredient in some of lhe most powerful tronquillizers (inser).

nrornrn ttf?

wat rfil

(of,frD:tcr kuown that a number of influential figures in US commerce and industry inr,ested a sr-rbstantial amount of time and monev in L G. Farben projects before and after the rvar. Among them was the Nlellon fanrilv The \"Iellon family, fbunders of the \'Ie11on Institute, established i tsel f i rr l 9l 3 as an organ izat ion i ndependentl v sponsori ng ad\rancesin scienceancl industry. The institute \\'as also to 'discover' that fluoricle was an 'amazing toothdecav preventative'.

rNrr*y &(or mi|or|r

R ockefe ller Fo un da t ior r and t he For c l f am -

i l y wer e public ll e n c o rrra g i n g l o rrg -te rrn in population control. It is also

FIN A N C IA T

_.9 o o o

GA IN

Coincidentally., the Mellon family also founded the Aluminum Company of American (ALCOA). Fluoride is the highl,v toxic byproduct of aluminium manufacture (as well as of manv other industrial processes),and ALCOA were frequentl,v and successfullv- sued {br poisoning cattle, crops and rvaterr'va;,s.Saf'e disposal proved expensive, so r,r'hatcould be done to eliminate these costsand, perhaps, even

- " !...#@ * a* "

dental saviour. To the alarm of' many scientists who stronglv disputed the allesed health benefits, the American Dental Association launched a campaign to promote fluoride. E rrdorscrncrrtbr tl re I rri rcd S raresPublic Health Serr,ice (USPHS) strengthened public confi<lencc in the new 'rvonder drug', and b,v the mid 1940s a handftrl of rnaj or I S si ter Irad hcgrrn fl uori dat ing thei r' \\' al eI suppl i t,s. P ropaga ndist s obtai ned ' errdols( l n( rrIs' from i rrstit ut ions n'ho acceptcd the health claims without question, irnd the sreenlisht was given for r nal i on\ri de l l rrori rl l ti orrt anrpai â&#x201A;Źr r . ME D IC A T

= o p

E 5 o

o o o

t,';';,';,,; "

D OU B TS

:.:" ::.,1

Frorn thc late 1950s, thc USPHS channelled millions of'US taxpavers'dollars to other corlntrics to promote fluoridation, and manr. n:rtions - including the UK l eapt orr t. rhe l rl rndrvagorr.B rrt m ost European conntries rejectecl fluoridation out of hand, and others that tried it soon stopped because clf adverse health effects attrl gcrrcrali rrelIecti rt' nt' ss. The cornmon ltclicf is that treatment r'r,ithfluoricle is cf'fcctive for a lifetime, yet

tunr in a profit lrom the $,astematerial? ALCOA and other fluoricle-producins industries funded research rvhicl't appeared to inclicate that small quantiries of the chemical \{ere not harmful to humans. Eventualll', research suggested that fluoride reduced tooth cavities. Promoters concentrated on rvhat thev sar,v as health benefits,completelf ienoriug;the knolr-r adverse cumulative efl'ects of this highl,vtoxic substance. SETE CT I V E

e = .q

RE S EA R C H

Scientistsworking for the American Dental Association (ADA) on behalf of Alcoa contirrued promoting fluoride, despite its abr-rsebv the Germans aud Russians. Although dozensof scientistsand pressure organizations disputed the claims of the pro-fluoride lobbl', public opinion quickl_v embracecl the alleged qualities of the nen,

,9 T o F

K BNIAbac

payout desPt* ride

\ d""91ff"ff*#Xtd:* deniesliabi1' -1- .^moany

gfr-1a,

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research sh ows th at any pr ot ec t ion dis appears be fore th e p er s on ent er s t heir 20s . I n lact, a n umb er ol m edic al anc l dent al

s ay t her e i s n o e v i d e n c el h a t fl u o trenefits teeth at all lhe a cu le e m bar r as s m ent of t he US

al Institr.rte of Dental Research R) , indepen d e n t a n a l y s i so f a 1 9 8 8 r epor t on d e n ta l d a ta o f 3 9 .1 0 7U S n showed that there was virtually no difference in the number of tooth cavities in children from fluoriclated and non-fluoridated areas.

' :

,,:. i..

So what purposedoesfluoridatedwater

se.ve?Its high toxicity is widely recognized, . recent declassified documents ..".qa -,:ireleased in the US confirm that the miliu ru k n. * of f luori d e ' s a d l e rs e e ffe c tso n re br ain as ear ly a s 1 9 4 4 .

...

! -9 d d

3 â&#x201A;Ź â&#x201A;Ź! o

A According ro fluoride reseorcher lon E. Stephens, Prime Minister Thotcher

AItABtE

O N PRESCRIPTION

into other uses of fluoride is ng. S inc e Wo rl d \A' a rII. tra n q u i l l i z ers, ranging from the mild sedativesprescribedf or depr ess i o nl o th e p o te n t mi n d a l te r ing dr ugs , ha v e b e c o m e a m u l ri -m i l "lion dollar industry. Ov er 60 t r anq u i l l i z e rs o n th e ma rk e t

(inser) rripled rhe woter-fluoridqtion budget in Northern lrelond during the mid-8Os. Stephens speculoted fhor this wos nol motivoted by concern for dentol heolth, buf on ottempt fo pocify poliricol octivisfs in the oreo.

Diazepam (Valium) produces new, a stronger tranquillizeq Rohypnol. Both are manufactured by Roche Products, another subsidiary of I. G. Farben, al ong with other similar drugs. The porverful fluoridated tranquillizer Stelazine is rtidelv used in retirement homes and mer-rtalinstitutions around the world. As more information about later fluoridation is revealed, the more the public's anxiety appears to increase. Proponents quote hundreds of studies proving fluoride's effectiveness in negating tooth decay, but the union of professional scientists at the US Environmental Protection Agency point to deliberate cover-ups of grave risks to human populations and the denigration - and even sacking- ofethical scientistswho dare to speakup. TR OU B TE D

W A TE R S

To most dentists. flr-roridation is a 'wonder drug' , counter-acti ng poor or al hygiene arrd dietary problems. To others, it is an insiclious and cynical method of modifiing our behaviour and a means of allon'ing industry to profit from a dangerous naste product. Many lay people regard fluoridation as enforcecl massmedi cati on. The del i berate denial of risks by health officials has led others to regard fluoridation as a form of social control. They point to the history of fluoridation and its clocumented links with what is perhaps one of the most evil regimes of this centurlr.

icture the scene: a giant UFO hovers over the desert. Laser beams extend from under the craft and manoeuvre huge stone slabs into position as ro astonished nomads look on. Later, when the craft has left, three huge pyramids remain in the sand. And for generations, the confused and annazed tribes-people recount the events in their legends and their sacred texts describing the alien craft as fiery messagesfrom the gods, and their pilots as angels in golden chariots. According to some, this scene could reallv have been enacted some 5,000 years ago at Giza, the site of the great ppamid in Egypt, and at different times elsewhere in the world - at Stonehenge in England, on Easter Island and in South America. Precisely why an advanced civilization would help the indigenous people to build these

vast structures is a mystery, but theories for their use range from cosmic transmitters to gatewaysto the stars. Some enthusiasts of the ancient astronaut theory even go so far as to suggestthat the human race itself was seeded by alien visitors. These visitors, it is claimed, arrived on the planet hundreds of thousands of years ago and gave evolution a nudge - as depicted in the opening scenes of Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001: A SpaceOdyssq.

A The imcAd 'flying'god Aztec

qnd the

A L IE N

A N C E S TOR S

These ideas are not new. The concept of advanced civilizations from the stars influencing human progress has been around since at least Victorian times when, members of the Theosophy Society, an occult group, imagined an alternative history for the human race. But the concept first made

Columbion

represenlolionsl onci ent nol - os we

led to believe -

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global headlines in the 1970s with the work of the Swissauthor, Erich von Diniken. Von Diniken has written a series of highly successful books, beginning wi*t Chariotsof the Gods?in 1969, in which he presented evidence for alien visitations in ancient times. U N IF O R M

IMA GE S

Although much of von Dd"niken's work has since been discredited, some UFOlogists believe that at the core of his findings is a nugget of truth - that advanced beings indeed visited earth and left their mark

here at the dawn of civilization. But, what is the evidence? At the centre of von Diniken's theory and the ideas of all enthusiastsof the ancient-astronautstheory is the remarkable consistencyof the images and icons of ancient peoples. There is also a uniformity to their legends and the characteristics of their gods that - believers insist could not be put down to chance. They point to the similarity of accounts from sources as diverse as the ancient Eglptians, the Maya and the ancient Chinese, all of whom had no contact with each other.

"it:'! :,

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,14"ll I;!li

One

of the best descrip-

one particularh' strikirrepassage:

tions o1'u,hat some enthusiasts belier,e to be alien visitors is to be found

in the ancient Indian

text,

the Maltahhara,tct.

ANCIENT

TEXTS

At ser,eral points in the text, the authors describe $'hat are calied I'irnrunas, a rvord meaning 'fl,ving machines'.In the text, the Virmanas are sometimes described as flf ing vehicles r"rsedfor military pllrposes zrnd are often piloted b1' Indian gods. One of these is called the .l q tte t n \ r eepon ar rd i t a p p e a rs i n

explodine, r'r.l.rich,because ne har.e onlv

A blazing mi.ssilepossessed of the radianceof smokeless utas discharged. A fre thick gloom suddenly encomltassedthe hosts. All poinLs of the compctssuere stLdden\ enuelopedin darkness.Euil bearing uinds began to blou. Cl,ouds rearerl into the higlrcr ait; shozuering blood, The uerl elementsseemedt:onfused. The sttn appearedto spin round. The utorld, scorchedb1 the heat of that uteapon,seemedto bein a feuer. At first glance, this could easil','be interpreted as a nuclear \,\'eapon

recentlr, knoivn

about

such

\ \ e a p o r ) s . h a s l c r l e r r t l r t r s i a s t sl o c( ) l r clr.rde tlrat the Virmartr,tsmust be of extraterreslrial

origin.

SUPPORTING

EVIDENCE

Hower,er, this passaee - Iike so much of the lore behind ancientastronauttheories- is entirelv open to interpretation. It is also possible that this accoullt could have originallv describeda natural phenomenon such as a rol cani c err r pt ion. and the tale has been adulterated br numel ous rei rrterpretalior r s.

But, claim the enthusiasts, there is plenty of other evidence. According to some supporters of the ancient-astronaut theory, primitive man seems to have been obsessed with space-suited figures. Drawings of what look like astronauts are to be found in cave dwellings in the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Far East and Australia. To support this evidence, claimants have researched what they believe to be ancient landing sites for UFOs. The best known example is the Plain of Nazca in Peru, which is only fully identifiable as an overall

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strllcture fiom aerial photographs. Orthoclox archaeologists insist that the Nazca markings are Inca roads, but this is harcl to reconcile u,ith the fact thzrt these roads leacl norvhere. Thesc markings also include some \rer)' odd configurations - nothins like roads - lvhich the more determined enthusi:rsts have strguesteclcould be 'parking ba1's'for aircraft or spacer,ehicles. The bissest problem rvith the co n ce pl of ' alier r r is i l l rl i o rr.l rrrti c rrl or modern, is the conundrun-i of horv aliens could tra",el vast interstellar dist:rncesto get here. Er,en

supporters tircorl'

of the alien visitation

tirat

the

lrcaresl

limit on interrstellal trar-el. A rnor-e plobable theorv is that an

home for another cir,ilization rnrrst

ach':incecl civilization - trar,elling rel-

be at least 4.2 light vears arv:rr'(the

:rtivell slon'lr' - passed this rvav thou-

llear es t s t llr t o o t r r S r r r i ) .

sirncls o{ \'ears ago ell

rollte

colonising other rvorlds. Perhaps if

SCIENTIFIC

PUZZLE

aliens did r,isit the Pharaohs or the

Strch vzrstclistances mean thirt, even

N,Ia1,a,thev hopped off their mother

if a cir-ilizatiort cliscovelecl a na\, of

ship for

trar,elling :rt close to the speecl of

:""ffi:i*:ll,-"'W&*

light,

it r'r,or.rld take them

or,er B harclly prac-vearsfbr a round trip ticai fcrr a casuzrl visit. One sllggestion is that adr,ancecl bcinss

have

a short

time

and

left

[n. th,enext lssue, UFO FILE irLuestigates

developed wavs to bend the lalvs of

one of lhe most recen,t LIFO craslt

phvsics that pr-rt an upper

retrieuttls al \larghina, Brazil.

speed

XNKFâ&#x201A;ŹK *FDn Knnl Snur:R EXAM I NEST E G E N D SO F WEREWOLVES AND TYCANTHROPYAND AsK! ARE THEY MYTH, MAGIC OR MEDICALCONDITIOII? nly

a ferv moie

minutes

and

wo uld be h om e. s af e behind c lo; ed doors. Only a few more *in.,t.t

W but it was already too late. Above, a l a yer oI c lot r dsdr if te d a p a rl - e x p o s i n g .i rr all its m4jesty, the silent silver-hued moon. As he yelled.in terror, his voice began to change, transforming into the spine-chilling howl of some primitive beast. But that was not all. His howling mouth was itself changing, effortlessly stretching into a long muzzle, fiIled with sharp rvhite teeth, and surmounted by a "broacl nose with bristling whiskers. He was still runhing, but he was now on all fours. and as he ran his body grew more powerful, bursting, thr&rgh his clothes. He was now entirely iovered in dense brorvn fur. from his flattened head clorryn ro rhe tip of the long, hairy tail. His transformation into a wolf was complete. . CHA NG E

FOR

THE

W OR SE

Bodily transformation of a human inro a wolf (or any other animal) is, of course, a physical impossibitity. Yet belief in werewolvei was wid'bspread throughout medieval Europe, with werewolf legends

and lore emanating from Scandinavia, France, Germany., Sicily. central and eastern Europe, the Balkans and Greece. .$nd long before',,flolumbus reached the New \Aiorld, thJ-kqlive American peoples feared their'oivffrverew ol fequi val ents. It seemsmost likely that the werewolf concept originated in the custom of prehi stori c human hunters w rappi ng t hem selvesin wolf ski.4s-inthe belief that they n'ould be irnbued with the hunting prow essof thi s formi dabl e predato r .The tradition persisted, albeit in an atrbphied version, in later \{erel{olf legends, which tel l oF horr' hrrmans coul d become r ver e\volves if they wore a magic belt or cloak made Ii om' w ol f ski rr.

t The belief in werewolves humqns possessing the occult obility to

CRY

lronsform lhemselves

Another werewolfi tradition, its transformati on at ful l moon. probabl y ori ginat ed in prehistoric times too. \Arhen humans began d6mesticatingwild wolf-like dogs to hunt with them,"gheywould have undoubtedl y observedthei r dog!' del i ght i n howli ng ar 1!remoon duri ng hunti ng fora ys. Thi 8ughout manki nd' s soci al de velopment, the moon, hunting, and wolves have become entrvined within increasingly compl ex nrrthoi ogi es. l n manr' l esends, t he moor-rgoddessr,r'asalso a huntress (as tvith

into wolves - slrelches bock fhousonds of yeors, ond still exerfs o powerful hold over our imoginotions, qs lhe successof films surh os An American Werewolf in London (inset) ottesfs.

o j

FOR

TH E

MOON

'il'li t?l

:rdi

th e R o m a n D i a n a , th e Greek A rtemi s. and the Babylonian Ishtar), whose. hunting ' dogs were often men who had been magi cally changed by her into wolves, so leading to the birth of the werewolf concept. W E R E WOT F

D ET U S ION

#!4* * *

V Severe ctrses of ckin comploints.such os impetigo, in oddition ro hoiry feofures, could hove been behind some of the mony coses of werewolves reportdd in rhe Middle Aoes. ]

A major influence ifl the werewolf concept's evolution and .often wrongly ass'fimed to be synonymous with werewolfum is lycanthropy (translating as 'the wolf-man con{ition'). Yet whereas 'gen"the uine' were*oFu., are confined to realms of folklore; lycanthropy is a real, abnormai psychological condition, and was recognized as long ago as the 2nd century AD by the scholar Marcellus Sidetes. A person so. affli.cted (termed a lycanthrope) suffers from the delusion that he ip a wolf or that cari' turn himself into o ne. D ependi ng upon tne s-everrty of the case, lycanthropes will rip Apart raw , {neat with their teeth, howl and shriek at the'full moon, and attack other, people with ravaging bloodlust, tearing at their victims'

throats in anLnconffiollable frenzy. Jhe hi stori cal chroni cl es bul g e wit h we*wolf reports. which reachJ their peak in the Middle Ages. This is vividly demonstrated by the wnazing fact that in France alone, between 1520 and 1630, an ipcredible 30,000 toup-garyu(werewolf) trials occurred. In reality, however, lycanthropy and other mental illnesses resulti"g in cannibalism and.serial murder were the true villains, Sponsored bry ignorance l dnd superstition.': B TOOD Y

H IS TOR Y

Take, for example, the case of a teenage shepherd called Jean Grenier, from south; ern France's Bordeaux region. During hi$ trial in 1603. Grenier boasted that. after assumingthe guiseoFa wolf, he had slaughtered and devoured over 50 children,'and claimed to=have acquired his shapesh'i{1ing power froin a rnysterious dark stranger thaq he had met deep in the forestsa few years earlier. The ,stranger, identified in many accounts of this caseas the Devil, supposedly gave Grenier a salveand a woif skin and when. at dusk. Grenier rubbed his body wi.th the salve and placed the skin over himself, he became a wolf. Detailed questioning during his trial, however, s,howed that Jean Grenier was

A â&#x201A;Źhildren born with rhick fociol hoir, like I

two-yeor-old Abyss de Jesus, were once soid lo suffer from 'humon werewolf syndrome'.

t h a n b e i n g b u r n t a t t h e s t a k e . t h e fa te o f c o u n t l e s s o t h e r l y c a nt h r o p e s .

A Even in modern times, belief in the obility of humons lo chonge themselves into wolves persists, esperiolly in srrongholds of werewolf folklore.

evidently half-witted, givdn to inventing all manner of wild stories and afterwards b e l i e v i n gth e m to b e tru e. A fter consul ti rrg with medical specialists,the judge decided that Grenier was*not a werewolf but a lycanthrope. Accordingly, he ordered that Grenier should be given over to the care of the monks at a Franciscan monastery in Bordeaux for the rest of his days rather

One of the .n1ost tragic cases of lycanoccurred in'*'the village of

thropy

E c c f e s f u a l l ,S t a f f o r d s h i r e . I n A p r i l 1 9 7 5 . 1 7 .jft

year-ol tl apprenti ce j oi ner. Andr ew Prinold, stabbed himself through the heart lvith a knife, terrified that he was starting to transform ir-rto a rverewolf. MA R K

TH E

BEAST

The abundance of werewolf reoorts in medieral"Europe no doubt stemmed from the vast number of features by which, according to folklore, a person could be unmasked as a werewolf. Tell-tale traits to look out for w hen stari ngi nto th e f ace of a suspectedwerewolf in human included srnall pointed o form o ears.protrudi ng teeth.and br oad 3 eyebrows that joined on- the A bridge of the nose.Shaking a suss pect'shand offered a good oppdrr 6 : tunity to check for more clues, such as hairy palms, long curved fingernails tinged with red, and an unusually long third finger. But how did one tn* .qt*d becLrme a werewolf in the first place?

'Ifuwolf

strikm fear

nfoMim

: â&#x201A;Ź

'Ancient

legends provided f vu.*r, o, porsibilities. Quite apart from deliberate activities such as wearing magical cloaks of w o l f s k ir ior par t i c i p a ri n gi n ma g i c a l ri ru a l s. t her e wer e m a n y w a y s i n w h i c h th e u n war y c ould f al l v i c ri m to rh i s ma l i g n metamorphd'sis. Anyone drinking water from puddles formed in wolves' tracks, or from streams frecirlented by wolves, would surely become a werewolf;'So, too, might a per. son hungry enough to eat the flesh or brains o[ a wolf. or even the flesh of a t sheep killed by a wolf. No doubr m ed i e v a l Eu ro p e a n s ro o k h e a r t f r om t he c l a i m th a l w e re w o l v e s could be kept at bay by the presence of a sp ri g of wolf s ban e o v e r o r th e d o o r o f a h o us e.A ls o, t hes ec re a tu re sw e re b e l i e v e d to be-mortal, and could be killed if shot wi th a bles s edbull e r. '

RABID

WOTF

In modern times, a number of medical e xp lanat ions in a d d i ri o n to l y c a n th ro p y h a ve been of f er e d fo r b e l i e F i n w e re wolves.Two supposed characteristicsof a we rewolf ar e it s lo a m i n g m o u l h a n d i rs a b i l ir y t o t ur n anyo n e i t b i te s i n ro a w e re wolf. This scenario is indicative o{ a

) There.was o time when Yu Zhenhuon would hqve been deemed on infont. werewolf by the more fonoticol members of society- Even bobies born feet first, or those with pointed conine.*,'. leelh, ron rhe risk of ' being stigmotized cs werewolves.

rabiesJinked origin,, because a rabid wolf would certainly froth at the mouth, and anyone bitten by.such a beast durirg the medically-backward Middle Ages would most likely contract this liorrific illness anq evenrual l y di spl a y t he same symi l toms. f t ls aiso possible that, lrt medieval times, peasantseating rye contaminated with ergot fungus ma1'have suffered LSDlike hallucinations that thev rvere actually changing into ryoh'esor other animals. o

o .E

GTAMOROUS

CREATURE

Once,'the n'ererr'olflr-asa hideous. diabolical creatnre of dread. Todar', thanks to i rnages creareclbv H ol l rrr' ooci ,i t has it s place in poprilar culture. Like the movie r-ampire. tire rr'ererrolfof the wide screen is ir-rcreasinglr'slick, suave and sexuallycharsed - bnr hou,, and tvhy? ,$ h'r this technological age, the fears ancf l arrci esof the rrrrsophi sri cated past h ave no place. Exposed as unrealistic. and ofren do\rrr righ t I udicrous.werewolI legerrds have been rend.e*'edsafe - still a little scary,$gr-, haps, but nothing more. We now recognil'e.. that the true, shapeshiftingwerewolf existed only in folklore - we are never going to be assaulted by a licentiovs loup-gatou Fiom ni$htmarish monster of the past to errduri ng megastarof the present .and probabl y the fl urure.the l ore o[ rhe wolf has undergone a transformati on a s dr amatic as any accomplished

r,rerewolf in bygoneeras. ,/

bv the

r**

ffiffiffi MANY UFOTOGISTS CRITICIZE GOVERNMENTSFOR COVERING UP THE .REALITY, oF ALIEN LIFE. BUT THE REVEIATIONS oF THE MOD'S NICK POPN HAVE LED TO A REASSESSMENT OF THIS POSITION. ince joining the Ministry of Defence (MoD) at the age of lg, Nick Pope has filled a number of positions, from preparing briefing material for senior officers to involvement in the poliry re initiative enabling women to fly as pilots in the Royal Air Force. But it was his work between lggl and 1994 that made Pope such a controversial figure. During that time, at the Ministry's Secretariat (Air Staff) 2a office, based in the MoD,s London headquarters in Whitehall, he was responsible for investigating UFO sightings. His task was to evaluate whether or not there was any evidence of a threat to the United Kingdom, and his conclusions - that some UFOs were indeed extraterrestrial in origin - were startling from one in an official capacity, and attracted a lot of media attention. Pope still works for the MoD, where he holds the rank of Higher Executive Officer, the equivalent of a Major in the British Army. But he has kept his ties with the UFO community, \ riting two books about his MoD findings and appearing at dozens of UFO conferences worldwide. Some of his MoD colleagues call him'Spooky', while Nick Pope'sbesrselling book, Open Skies,Closed Minds, rells the story of his officiol reseorchinto rhe UFOsphenomeno.

many UFO researchers see him as a brave individual. Along the way, Pope has picked up his fair share of admirers - who see him as a real-life Fox Mulder. spilling the beans on Britain's X Files - and critics, who view him as a minor government stooge with little of real importance to say. fn a rare quiet moment during a UFO conference in tlre north of England, The X Factor caught up with Pope and asked him how he got the job as the UFO investigator at the Ministry: â&#x201A;Ź,â&#x201A;Ź = e I'd worked in some interesting jobs since I joined the MoD in 1985, and I'm postecl to a different job every few years. I was due to be moved in 1991 and was asked to be the Department,s resident expert on UFOs. I didn't even know there rvassuch a post.

Whof wqs your opinion qbout UFOs before you stqrted investigoring sightings officiolly? \{hen I started the job, I didn't know much about the UFO phenomenon and had no strong views on the subject. My first question was why the Ministry concerned itself with this subject at all. It turned out to be wrapped up with issuesof national security.

Whor were fhe MoD concerned qbout? All UFO reports are looked at to see whether there's any evidence of threat to the defence of the United

Kingdom. \ArhenI started looking back through the files, there seemed to be an absence of investigation, and a reliance on sending out standard letters when a report of a UFO arose. To me, this seemed strange how could anyone say that UFOs were not a threat if they didn't know what the objects were? I decided to take a closer look.

Fylingdales in Yorkshire, who could tell me about satellite activity and any space debris re-entering the earth's atmosphere. I could also impound radar tapes, check weather balloon launches and try to correlate sightings with airship flight plans.

How mqny UFO reporfs did you fhink could be sqfisfqcrorily exploined?

Whqt struck you most obouf your new iob?

\Arhen investigated thoroughly, about 90 per cent of The first thing that surprised me was how many sightings were explained as misidentifications of reports we received. On average, known objects and phenomena. there were between 200 and 300 But this left a hard core of cases e ver yy ear .and t hi s i s i n a s i tu a ri o n u,hich defied any conventional t-Inidentifiedflyin g objects explanation. The official position where most people won't report a arepotentially the most sighting at all, either through fear is 'Object Unexplained, Case important issuecurrently Closed'. That is to say,we simply of ridicule or simply because they don't know who to contact. The don't know facing the human race reported sightings are undoubtedly the tip of a huge iceberg. Those But you werent confenl lo who did report a UFO would leove it ot thot... normally contact the police or a military No. I was unhappv at ollr lack of successin these establishment or a civil airport. These reports cases,so I launched a rarlge of initiatives to improve eventually made their way to the MoD. the chance of finding some al-lsrvers. The main task was making the public a\\'are that there rvassomeone How did you investigofe o sighring? at the MoD who n-anred to hear about their sightings. \Alhen a UFO sighting came to light, it was easyfor me I also plotted sightings on a map and looked for to carry out detailed investigations because of my patterns. There were no real surprises there official position. I would check with civil and military sightings were concentrated around cities, where air traffic controllers to see whether there were there are more people to see UFOs. I also forged any aircraft in the area at the time. The Royal good working relationships with civilian UFO research Observatory at Greenwich would see if there was any organizations, such as BUFORA fBritish UFO astronomical explanation for sightings * meteors and ResearchAssociation] and Quest International, so we fireballs have explained a number of could compare data. reports. I liaised with the Ballistic Missile Early Warning Centre at RAF How did your experiences

## rs

!r\

qffect your outlook on UFOs? I'd begun the job with an open mind, but by 1993 I believed that some UFOs were extraterrestrial craft. No single case changed my mind, but rather the cumulative effect ofall the evidence I encountered: the witnesses,the photographs, the videos, the radar evidence. There were some UFO sightings that included structured craft displaying a technolosv - in terms of manoeuvrabiliq, and speed - that went way beyond the cutting edge of even our best prototype aircraft. \Arhat was the craft that Belgian Air Force tried to intercept in 1990?\A/hatwas the craft that passed over an RAF base one night in 1993, firing beams of light? It all aclded up.

.*Hfr!*:.|JSt,,,i.:.lJ:.nC CD vn{rp;ained rigits

Jd n 3 1

ffiffiffi K7 '

ls it unusuol for witnesses from the milirory to come forword? Yes,the fear of professional ridicule seems to be a major deterrent. But many RAF pilots have admitted to me that they've seen things in the sky that they're at a loss to explain. And their qualities as trained observers make them impressive witnesseswhen they do encounter something unexplained

Whtrr is the most convincing individuol cqse you hove eyer dncounlered? This occurred in Rendlesham Forest - in the heart of the Suffolk countryside - in 1980, near the RAF basesat Woodbridge and Benrwaters. When military police from the US Air Force went to investigate lights in the forest, they saw pulsating lights moving through the trees. On closer examination, the witnessessaw a triangular, metallic object in a clearing in the forest. It was about 3 metres wide and 2 metres tall, and, when they approached it, it took off into the sky.The Deputy Base Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, filed a report entitled Llnexplained, Lights in 1981, but the official investigation January that followed decided there was no threat to national security and so the casewas closed. Were you inyolyed in reseqrch for this cqse? Not at the time, but I reopened the investigation. The Defence Radiological Protection Service confirmed to me that the levels of background radiation measured at the landing site by the team of soldiers were ren times higher than normal. I now truly believe it to have been an alien landing.

i , d ,d e r e f

How did your superiors qt fhe Minisrry reqct to your widely-publicized views? My views weren't popular with them. I was posted elsewhere in the summer of 1994, but I've continued my research privately. As for the Ministry, I'm told that many of my initiatives have been reversed, and that the Department have, despite the overwhelming evidence, effectively closed the investigations. However, I still believe, like Fox Mulder, that the truth is out there.

Whor mokes you rhink you were top of the UFO lqdder? Who's to sqy your superiors didn't know whqt wqs redlly going on? If anything was being covered up, ir was only their ignorance, their lack of knowledge.

Were they hoppy rhor you published q book qbout your fime ct the Minisfry? Some of them were horrified, but most of nry colleagues supported me. I believe that if military figures are allowed to write books about the Gulf War then I can write a book about my experiences.

Are you still involved in UFO reseqrch? Yes,I'm still asked for my views on a wide range of UFO-related questions. I'm often invited to speak at UFO conferences, and I'm working with a number of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens.

Whqr is your conclusion qbouf qbductions? I think this is the mosr fascinating part of the UFO mystery. After years of official and private research, I've concluded that abductions are indeed real. SS

SPACE, n February 1996,Russia's Proton rocket blasted apart in the final stage of its jollrney into space.It was a W disaster for the Russian space programme, but it rvasnotjust the rocket scientistswho hung their heads in dismay at this latest space calamity. At least 200 large metal fragments from the exploded Proton were no\'vin orbit around earth - all increasing the danger of rockets and satellitesbeing destroyedby space.junk. sPA CE

CO T LT ST ON

All spacecraft suffer impacts rvith orbital debris. be it man-made or natural. But the clire consequencesof such a collision were forcefullv brought home when the Space Shuttle Columbia landed at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida in November 1 9 95.Dr r r ing it s l6 -d a y mi s s i o ni rr space,something had collided with the shuttle car.rsinga crater 2 cm acrossand 6 mm deep. A l - ewm illim et r esd e e p e r c o u l d have been fatal for the seven Columbia crer,vmember-s. Later analysisrevealed that ) Theorbirer Columbioreturnslo eorth in 1995 loodedwifh reseorch somples.A mognifiedphotogroph (inset)shows the domoge cousedby tiny orbitol debris.Theimpoctof lorger ilems of spoceiunk poseso ierrible risk ro hugelyexpensiveond fime-consuming spoceproiects.

the shuttle had been hit by a piece of electronic circuit board from a rocket or satellite that had exploded in space.Travelling through space at 5 kilometres per second, it was extremely fortunate that the projectile did not cause an air leak or an explosion by puncturing the shuttle. GROW I NG

) This mini-croter wos one of mony found on fhe surfoce of the Solor Moximum Mission Sorellire (SMMS), which returned to eorth in April 1984. The holes were coused by hyper-

DA N GE R

velocity impocts

Space missions have become so common that the world hardly notices when rockets launch or touch down these days. Every yeaq around 100 new satellitesare sent into space and NASA runs eieht Sp a ceS hut r le m is s io n sO . n ro p o f rh i s. ther e is a gr owin g n u mb e r o f private spaceventures to launch satellites,such as the Iridium project for mobile telephone communications. Even so, space flight is far frorn ro u l i n e. A par t f r om h a l i n g to negotiate their rockets and satellitespast natural obstacles such as meteorites and asteroids, sci e n ti s t shav e been aw a res i n c e the early 1970sof an increasingly unpredictable mass of man-made debris, too. Sp a c ejunk c om es ' f ro ma number of sources. Some of it has been deliberately dumpecl in space, like special casing designed

with loose flokes of poinr.

jettisonecl or u'hen countries deliberatelr. destroy their old spy satellites.as the Russianshave been knorvn to. Like anything else, space hardl'are also wears away a n d b l e a k sdorrrrover ti me. Sor.nespacedebris is so small _ dust. in fact - that it can usually be tackled bv protective shielding. But such rneasriresare not enough on their oln, especiallvnhen serious damage can be done bv a flake of paint travelling at six times the speed of sound. MA N .MA D E

JU N K

While large chunks of debris can be spotted quite easily,once the smaller particles are taken into

account nobody really knows how much man-macl e j unk i s hurtl ing about i n space.The actual number of obj ecrs \ rJ rJ i s rr^\ l i kelr/ y to ru uc be llli n tllc the mi l l i ons,and thi s can onl y i ncr ease as spaceexplorarion and sat-ellite Iaunchesconti nue. Internati onal concern abou t spacej unk i s srrong enough fo r severalhigh tevel iniriativesto be under way. Efforts are being made ij to harmonize research activities between the UK, France, Germany ' and Italy, and there was a second E uropeanconferenceon the problem at Darmstadt in Germanv in March 1997. ',,,,,1' In February 1g96,the W hi te House produced a report on space

l'm qfroid rhot fufure qslronoufs will hove fo fly through orbiring minefields

A*hur C Clorke,outhorond spoceexoert

ffini; ,, to prevent damage to sensitive instruments during take-off and bodily waste from pasr space missions.Other.junk resultsfrom explosionsin space.Some of these are accidental, such as the proton rocket. Other explosionsare inter-rtional,such as when rocket stagesfiom a satellite launch are

debris, outlining options to cut down on spacejunk. The report suggests,among other measures, better rockel design to lessenlhe creat ion of junk . a n d s h i fti n g o l d ;,'-,,spacecraft into 'graveyard' orbits :tj ;t;f harm's way. But, although

33 rE R.other thqn fhe cqscqde reqcfion hoppening wirhin lhe next 20 to 50

Yedrst we could exPecf it perhops to occur in lhe next I O to 2O yeors I

K r c n o r o\ - r o w r n e r. ^o. .r. r n shDe fe n ce ^. t l^, 1

ReseorchAgency

ryaufi l*om. redesigning will limit the ch anc esof s pac ec ra ftd e s l ru c l i o n . th e ex per t s r ec ogn i z eth a t th e possibility of disaster cannot be removed entirely. The report concludes that 'the overall debris p o pulat lon wlll lnc re a s e . PR O J E CT

O RI ON

At NASA's Marshal Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, D rJ onat hen Camp e l l i s h e a d i n g rProjec TUJL LL tVlO r ion. r v r l. Ilt LDs d a i m i s to ri d th e . heavensol dangerorrsspacedebris ;li;rt:ttfe;*L the use of sophisticated

) Wolf CreekCroler,in Auslrolio,wos formed lhousondsof yeors ogo when o meteorilecroshed.Shootingstors (inset)ore o sign thot spocedebris hos enleredthe eorth'solmosphere. radar and laser beams. Once a dangerouspiece of debris has been located bv raclar, ground based lasersrvould be fired at the target, with the aim of altering the junk's course, if not destroying it altogether. The laser is specially designed to take account of the distortion to the beam caused by passing throush earth's atmosphereinto space. ' W e al readyhaveequi pment that would allow us to clear all

UK. Griffiths also points out Project Orion-rype lasersare also potential an I i-satelliteweapons, thus rai si ng the questi onof internat ional security.

DOWN

TO EARTH

Apart from worrying about collisions with debris in space, ,. scientistsare also mindful of the consequences of such obj ects l al l i ng to earth. A ccordi ng to Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist of the Kaman SciencesCorp, there have been over 15,000 re-entries into earth's atmosphere since the start of the space age, all of which , were sizeable,man-made objects. In March 1996.a l ai l ed C h inese spy satellite, the size of a small car:,. and weighing two tonnes, caused .'., worldwide panic as it headed back to earth. Scientistscalculated thai,..: :0 the satellite would hit the ground' ' o at 650 km/h, leaving a crater

) I

o i!

debris... below an altitude of 800 kilometres,' saysDr Campell. This would help protect many satellites and manned space stations which orbit at 500 km. The system could also be adapted to destroy hazardous meteorites. The only problem is that it has yet to be tested, so nobody knows for sure if it rvill work as well in practice as on paper. And it won't be able to cope with large objects, such as an a ste r oidor r ogue s p a c es l a ti o n . 'In the short-term, the only economic method of dealing with space debris is prevention,' says Andrew Griffiths, a researcher with the Department of Space Sciences at the University of Kent in the

V The Hoystock rodor ot Tyngsboro, Mossochusetts, USA,hos been usedby NASAsincel99O to trock spoce debris.lt con pinpoinrobiectsos smoll ,i . os 5 mm ocross,IOOOkm owoy.

30 metres wide and destroying everything within 100 metres. On this occasion the satellite splashed down harmlessly in the mid.-SouthAtlantic Ocean. Similarly when the Skylab space station crashed back to earth in 1979 it landed in remote western Australia, causing no fatalities. Indeed, the only death caused so far by falling space debris was that of a cow in Cuba in 1962. The debris was from a prototype of the American Saturn V rocket. and the Cubans gave the cow a full state funeral as a victim of imperialist aggression. AS T E RO I D

.-a:;

A T T AC K

The potential for destruction caus edby t he lar g e r m e te o ri te s and asteroids colliding with earth, though, is no laughing matter. At least 200 craters on earth have been caused by asteroid impacts. It is believed that the dinosaurs' rule on earth was brought to ar-r abrupt end 65 million years aso, when a 160km-wide asteroid, travelling at 33,000 km/h, crashed off the coast of Mexico. And. in 1908,when an object estimated to be just 30 metres acrossstruck Tunguska in Siberia, it laid waste V Among preventotive methods qre pclches which con repoir holes in Spoce Stotions, ond o 'bumper' or outer sheet (inset) syslem which protecfs spocecroft.

to an area nlore thaD 5(l knt :1cross, In 1998,\-\SA plans ro iaunch the Intentational SpaceStation. It rvill take fbur years to br-rildand will be in space for around ten years, so engineers kno\,vthat it will have to be tough enough to stand up to a barrage of space debris. To deal with this thev have developed a 'meteor bumper' shown the bumper to stand np a metal sheet placed a ferv rvell to impact. centimetres from the station's hull I r r N o r e m b c r ' | 9 0 9 . . c i e nti sts to act as a shield. Tests so far have believe that earth rr'ill be struck by a shor,verof over- 10,000 r.neteors. The space statiolt can shift its position so as to preseltt as small a surface area to the oncoming storm as possible, but it cannot be protectecl contpietelr'. It h:rs bercn calculated that there is zi one in ten chance of the space statiolr being punctured by z 6 5 J

deblis chrring its l0-vear lifetirne. T r r f a c t . s c r r n e\ c i c n t i s l s a r e co m i n g around to thinking that the best. ft,av to tackle such asteroid threats

,i j

is to stase a nuclear explosion in space.