Chris's Comics Corner 6

Chris Irish’s long delayed review of IDW’s season 10, some more terrific analysis, and something we are always pleased to present.

Season 10, Issue 16: Immaculate, Part 1

Written by: Joe Harris
Art by: Colin Lorimer
Colors by: Joana Lafuente
Letters by: Neil Uyetake
Editor: Denton J. Tipton
Executive Producer: Chris Carter

This installation of Season 10 opens up in front of an abortion clinic with a group of pro-life protesters in Murphysville, North Carolina. A blonde pregnant woman is standing across the street from them, saying the Lord’s Prayer to herself. A bright white panel with a black speech bubble says, “I will never abandon you, my child,” and she says she believes it. She walks through the snarling crowd to the clinic, the group lobs insults at her aggressively, and she is greeted by some clinic workers. Once inside she talks to the receptionist, who asks if she is with anyone, and she confirms, but when the receptionist notices no one with her, the pregnant woman says, “You’ll see.” She’s inside the doctor’s office now, ready for a procedure. The doctor asks if they’ve met before, and she says they haven’t. As the doctor talks to the woman, the receptionist in the office area is reviewing files and mumbles to herself that she’s seen the woman before as well. She pulls out a file with the name “Joanie Cartwright” on it and has a look of shock before she runs to the doctor’s office. From outside the clinic we see a giant explosion, and the protesters look on as the blonde woman walks from the fire unscathed, and no longer pregnant. She addresses the crowd and asks if they want to burn it all down and says, “Follow Us.” Enter title panel.
   
We join Mulder and Scully at the familiar FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. Our protagonists enter an office as two other agents are discussing something with A.D. Morales. One tells Mulder it’s “spooky stuff,” and Mulder quips at him, but Morales at the desk clarifies that it isn’t Mulder being called “Spooky.”  She hands them a picture of Joanie Cartwright, who is age 16, that was taken before the explosion at the abortion clinic. They are told that the girl smuggled in a crude fertilizer bomb and blew the clinic up, killing six people. Mulder asks why they are being brought into this investigation as the local field office would be better suited (a familiar occurrence in The X-Files, nice touch). Mulder is handed some more pictures and is told that they are confirmed not be retouched, and in one photo the girl has a faint halo over her head. It also looks like there’s a ghostly figure behind the girl (fantastic artwork, by the way). Scully and Mulder are reminded that their past dealings in Saudi Arabia have put the X-Files under scrutiny (the storyline “Pilgrims”), which is familiar territory for both Mulder and Scully over the years.

    Mulder and Scully travel to North Carolina to interview a survivor who has images of the girl standing in the explosion with a ghostly figure seeming to stand next to her. Mulder and Scully question her about the girl in question. Initially, she can’t recall the name of the boy who brought Joanie in the first time, but she has some sort of flash where Joanie says, “He will not abandon you,” and she tells them the boy’s name. Joanie again addresses her and says, “I can tell you where to find him,” and the receptionist tells Mulder and Scully. Scully tells Mulder they should let Morales know the details, but Mulder suggests the quiet approach—not surprising, knowing Mulder’s tendency to buck authority through the years.

Scully finds a relative of Joanie in a church in Murphysville. The lady is leaning on a pew praying the same prayer Joanie was at the beginning of the issue. The same “He will not abandon me” is mentioned as Scully approaches. Scully addresses the lady as “Mrs. Cartwright,” presumably Joanie’s mother. Scully asks her where Joanie is, but the mother keeps praying and mumbles that Joanie is a good girl, then says, “Don’t you see?” and turns to Scully, who sees the lady’s eyes are clouded. After this shock, the church’s pastor Alvin Johns approaches Scully and explains that he’s been caring for Mrs. Cartwright since her husband died. Pastor Johns offers to walk and talk with Scully.

Back to Mulder, he’s outside of Murphysville in a trailer park. In a thoroughly creepy X-Files scene with red sky and crosses hanging in a nearby tree, Mulder begins to investigate the area. During his poking around we see Pastor Johns and Scully walking and talking about the town and how religious people in the area are. As he says this, Mulder finds an unlocked trailer and enters. He finds an open book on Demonology lying on a desk. He finds a picture of Joanie in the pages of the book as someone else enters the trailer. Mulder surprises the man and runs from the scene. Back to Scully, she confronts the pastor and says it looks like Mrs. Cartwright’s eyesight was taken from her, and the Pastor says that it should. Returning to Mulder, he’s chasing the men, and he sees the man mysteriously get yanked to a halt by an unknown force. Mulder catches up to the man and notices a large group of men, women, and children standing in the way, all with the same problem with their eyes that Mrs. Cartwright has. Back to Scully, the pastor finishes his sentence, telling her that Mrs. Cartwright took her sight by herself.

Now Mulder and Scully are at the Murphysville Police Station interrogating the man who turns out to be Daniel, the boy who took Joanie in for her first abortion. Mulder grills him, and Daniel tries to explain himself. As Mulder and Scully talk to Daniel, we see a scene in Murphysville where a group of people encounter a dark woman with a group of armed individuals behind them. Back in the police station, Mulder and Scully are outside the interrogation room, discussing the case, while Daniel is waiting inside the room. As they are discussing the case, Daniel is staring at the mirror that separates the room and seems to be hallucinating. He says, “She wasn’t ready to have a baby,” as he reaches for a pen. In the next panels we see Joanie Cartwright standing among dead people left behind by the crowd she leads. Mulder and Scully hear Daniel scream and rush into the room to see that he’s gouged his eyes out, and the issue ends.

Season 10, Issue 17: Immaculate, Part 2

Written by: Joe Harris
Art by: Colin Lorimer
Colors by: Joana Lafuente
Letters by: Shawn Lee
Editor: Denton J. Tipton
Executive producer: Chris Carter

Part two of “Immaculate” starts with an FBI team going over the group of dead in the streets left behind at the end of the last issue. Mulder and Scully are walking amongst them. Scully tells Mulder the mobile ballistics lab is on the site, and Mulder has one of his hunches that the bullets will be traced back to these people’s friends and neighbors. Scully notices that not only have the dead been shot to pieces, but that they all seem white as a sheet, as if something terrified them beyond just getting shot. They go over the corpses and discuss what’s going on between images of the violence that unfolded earlier with the people being shot down and Joanie leading. Mulder says that an autopsy might shed some light on the events. As they walk away someone approaches a deceased woman and puts a hand on the dead woman’s head. We see a flash of her last moments, seeing Joanie with a large demon-looking shadow behind her. We see that it’s in fact Frank Black from the X-Files spinoff Millennium, before the title block.
   
The next scene opens in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina at a kind of refugee camp. A small boy is calling for his mother, but his sister is the only relative he has. Her name is Sarah, and she says she’ll take care of him. His name is Lucas. She assures him that she’ll be back and leaves him in his tent and goes to see Joanie. She recognizes Joanie from school, but Joanie only says, “He is our heart, he is our shepherd.” Sarah tells Joanie that they can’t find their mother, and Joanie tells her that she’s in a better place. Joanie is standing on the edge of a cliff and tells Sarah that she will see things for herself. Sarah starts to go back to Lucas, but everyone starts to gather around her and gets on their knees, and they all start chanting, “He is come” repeatedly.
   
We join Scully in the next page conducting an autopsy on one of the victims from the previous shooting. She notes an extreme amount of blood loss even for someone shot three times and that the dead man’s eyes are burned—that tells her that he was exposed to intense light. She goes on to say that some victims seem to have been scared to death, literally. Scully hears a noise in the hallway and goes to check but only finds a briefcase with a familiar symbol from Millennium on it. Inside she finds a file on Joanie Cartwright. Later on in the town church, Scully is waiting for Pastor Johns. She tells him that she’s come to see him and presents the briefcase that she found in the hallway in the morgue.
   
Elsewhere, Mulder is in the forest, leading a team that’s going to investigate the wooded area where the suspects from the mass shooting in town were last seen. Mulder asks one of the men where Scully is but is met by Frank Black, who informs him that she is seeking the truth and that he isn’t going to find anything in the woods if he continues following that lead. Mulder and Frank go into the FBI Mobile Command Unit bus to discuss the situation. Frank imparts what he knows to Agent Mulder regarding the case. They sort of clash regarding the nature of the case itself, being domestic terrorism or something worse. Frank tells Mulder what’s causing these problems is Joanie Cartwright. She believed that she was talking to God, but Frank knows better. Mulder asks him if it has anything to do with the Millennium Group, but Frank tells him he’s no longer associated with them. Right then another agent barges in and tells Mulder he has to see something. The girl Sarah from the beginning of the issue carries her brother to the agents. His eyes have been burned like the people who encountered Joanie in the town. Mulder talks to the girl while the agents try to help the boy. She says she never wanted to follow Joanie but everyone else seemed attracted to her for some reason. They load Sarah’s brother, Lucas, into an ambulance. Sarah tries to explain what it is that makes people want to follow her and how they would do anything for her, amongst panels showing people swan diving off the cliff to their deaths from earlier at the camp.    
   
Back at the town church, Scully is talking to the pastor. She asks if he’s aware that Joanie has had an abortion once already, and he confirms that he knew. Scully asks why it seems that he was the one who signed her out from school before her pregnancy and subsequent abortion. Scully indicates that the investigation is not over and she will be seeing him again. In the woods the FBI task force has found Joanie standing alone at the edge of the cliff. She tells the men that she never meant to hurt anyone and wasn’t ready to have a baby. They try to calm her down and get her to back off from the edge, but she says, “He said he’d never leave me,” right before she swan dives off the cliff. Mulder lunges to try and save her, but Frank holds him back. Mulder asks Frank what would do this to these people, and Frank says, “If you knew the things I knew, Agent Mulder, your hair would be gray too.” Below them at the bottom of the cliff Frank can see a demon emerging from the pile of bodies strewn on the cliff floor.
   
In the woods the paramedics are working on trying to save Lucas as Sarah looks on. They charge an AED and shock the boy’s chest to shock his heart back. Scully is leaving the church as this is happening and calls Mulder. She tells him that she has a good idea who the father of Joanie’s children was but can’t prove it without testimony. Mulder says it’d be difficult to do so since Joanie just committed suicide. Mulder tells Scully about Frank Black helping him and that he’s no longer part of the Millennium Group. Mulder looks up for a moment and sees that Sarah is no longer in the camp. Back at the church we see Sarah appear. She sneaks into the church where the pastor is alone. She approaches him, and he sees a halo on her head and giant demon wings coming out of her back. She says, “He is come.” And the issue ends.

    This story line was pretty creepy. It didn’t really clarify what this demon actually was, but that leaves it open for further story lines either in more X-Files issues or in Millennium comics. It was great to see Frank Black working with Mulder and Scully again. The whole thing was pretty creepy and touched on multiple hot button issues in today’s society as only The X-Files can. This kind of fearless commentary on difficult subjects is vital to the comics as it was in the television series.

Season 10, Issue 18: Monica and John

Written by: Joe Harris
Art by: Matthew Dow Smith
Colors by: Jordie Bellaire
Letters by: Shawn Lee
Editor: Denton J. Tipton
Executive Producer: Chris Carter

This issue opens in a farmhouse in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. An unidentified man is putting his shoes on, heads downstairs, then pulls a kettle off the burner. The man eats breakfast, reads a paper, then deposits the issue on a pile of others near the table. The person exits the kitchen, goes down to the basement via a hidden door, and grabs a set of keys off the wall, and there are a couple FBI badges hanging on the wall. One of them is Monica Reyes’s. The mystery character opens another door, and we find Monica Reyes curled up in a dark room alone. The person gives her some food to eat and shuts her in again. Monica hits the door but the person leaves her. She sees that she knocked her food to the floor, and we see the wall is scored with dozens of marks, indicating that she’s been locked up for a long time.
   
The mystery person then leaves the house in a truck as snow is falling. The person heads to the local post office and picks up a package. The postal worker tells the person that they should fix their address, and they say they will fix it. On a poster board behind them, there is missing person’s notifications for both Agent Reyes and Agent Doggett. The person leaves the post office, and we see that it is in fact Agent Doggett himself. Monica couldn’t tell who he was since the basement was dark.

In a flashback to events early in the comic Season 10, we see Agent Doggett doubled over in the dirt as the remains of the exploded pipeline are smoldering around him. Some workers call for help for Doggett and a man face down on the ground, but Doggett seems to have started glowing red, then stabs the man through the chest (pretty nice nod to Terminator 2). What we thought was Doggett turns into a cloaked man who proceeds to kill the rest of the workers, picks up the real Agent Doggett from the ground, and walks off.

In Sioux Falls in another dark cell, a long haired and bearded man hears a man in the hallway. The man is clearly John Doggett. He says he’s been in the cell for eighteen months, so clearly the Doggett we saw earlier was an imposter. Doggett yells at the imposter through the door before a mouse appears and then transforms into the hooded man, who grabs his throat and lifts him in the air. The man tells Doggett he’s been waiting for a sign before disappearing, leaving the door open. Doggett takes his chance and leaves the cell. He finds his and Reyes’s FBI badges hanging in the hall and goes to her cell to let her out. As he approaches her she tackles him, clearly not trusting him. He finally tells her it’s really him, sparing a further beating. They hold each other in the dark cell.

At the FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC, we join Agent Scully. Mulder is currently testifying at a parole board, covered in Millennium #1. Skinner enters the office as she’s about to leave and tells her to come see something. He shares the news that someone resembling John Doggett was spotted at a post office in Sioux Falls. As the panels catch Scully up, it shows the FBI responding to the house John and Monica were held in. It also flashes back to their escape, where John finds one of the shivs used to kill the Alien Bounty Hunters in the show. The hooded man tells Doggett that he’s to kill him, but John tries to arrest him instead to find out why he did this to them. Before he can do that, Monica drives the shiv into the man’s neck, and he dissolves into the green paste that the other aliens have in the series. Doggett questions Reyes to why she did it, but she tells him that they forgot all about them, just as Skinner and Scully burst in with an FBI team. Scully and the team assist Monica, and Scully sees Doggett at the top of the stairs. She runs up and hugs John and asks if he’s alright. He says he will file a report on the events and that they’re fine.

Now aside from Agent Mulder, who is busy elsewhere, the team is back together. This could aid Mulder and Scully to uncover this new conspiracy pretty well since Reyes and Doggett bring a lot to the X-Files. We shall see how these events play out in the following issues!

Special thanks for editorial assistance from A.M.D.

New podcast appearance on The X-Cast

Another podcast appearance in short order. The X-Cast is a fairly new UK podcast, and Tony Black was gracious enough to invite me to appear for about an hour.

We cover a range of subjects, and in spite of exhaustion, and missing a few questions on a quiz, it was fun times indeed. Everything from the premiere, favorite episodes, the history of the XFL site, The Syndicate platform, my brief thoughts on the paranormal and Carl Jung, music and film projects, and where to go next.

Mr. Black is a nice gentlemen and the podcast is worth a look.

Documentation Entry 2014

One of our staffers, the editor who works tirelessly to edit all material for the main site, The X-Files Lexicon, and this blog, XScribe, shared with me the following two accounts. While I am redirecting my energies elsewhere, as well as focusing on material for the main site, I thought I’d share these two accounts on the sightings of ghosts. Aside from accounts of ghost videos seen on You Tube, and which are to me always debatable, most real ghost sightings are never documented, as they act as fleeting moments that validate a sphere of reality, or consciousness, that can’t be explained in a linear sense for many. Therefore, it not is always advisable to just dismiss someone’s experience as an act of imagination, or misconception, especially in cases of multiple sightings from witnesses that have no connection to one another, whereby it becomes difficult to argue these cases as personalized – their experience is always valid to them, regardless of what the facts might be -- one should be prudent to recognize that aspect. I hope others will enjoy this. - Matt

I was going home, driving westbound on historical Route 66, just a block north from my house. It was late afternoon, but visibility was still good.

It had been a perfectly clear day. That section of Route 66 is heavily traveled, with a lot of businesses along the way. It's now a six-lane highway, with three lanes on each side. Around that same time I'd noticed that more and more pedestrians had taken to ignoring the crosswalks, and tried running right through traffic, instead. Which is crazy, considering how busy it is and that the speed limit is 45 - 50 mph.

On that particular day, I saw a young guy wearing a long-sleeved, striped shirt and dark pants, walking on the left side of the road. Suddenly, he ran right out into the middle lane almost in front of me as I neared him, startling me. Because of the heavy traffic, I couldn't immediately check my review mirror to see if he'd made it to the other side of the road. I was relieved not to hear any screech of brakes or tires or worse; still, when it was safe, I glanced back over my shoulder, expecting to see him racing to the right curb. No one was there.

Soon after that, I heard that someone had been killed in the same vicinity, on Route 66. Then I never saw any more pedestrians trying to cross that road outside of the crosswalks. Recently, I read something online that really got my interest. Apparently, there have been many other sightings of a young guy fitting the exact same description, on exactly the same stretch of road, who would appear and then vanish.

* * *

Right on the outskirts of the small town we used to live in when I was a kid, was an old road. It was called Agua Mansa, because it was on the edge of the Santa Ana River. The name means "gentle water." It used to be a small community in its own right, colonized in 1842, but was swept away in a huge flood in 1862. Not so gentle. Though the little community was completely wiped out, the dilapidated street remained, and thus was called Agua Mansa Road.

My dad used to drive down it as a short cut to any place west of our house nearby. Being kids, we loved when he drove that way because it was so creepy. It’s a completely rural road--no street lights and only one or two buildings or houses along its stretch. It has a lot of blind curves and broken asphalt that hadn’t been repaired in ages, yet people usually drove fast along it, despite the risk. Somewhere around the half-way point was a duck farm that provided a very feeble source of light at night on the south side and on the north side, was a steep, steep embankment down which thick rows of large, creepy, old, gnarled grape vines grew. No one tended those grape vines, so they were a mess. At the summit of the steep embankment, stood the gates to an old cemetery. It's the oldest cemetery in the county, I've since discovered and there's a lot of history to it, I also learned much later. People vandalized the cemetery and left headstones broken and overturned and dug up coffins, leaving bones unearthed.

To make it even creepier, our older cousin used to tell us frightening tales of homeless vagrants who would hang out at the cemetery. He said they’d hide in the grapevines and jump out and snatch children who misbehaved or just happened to be unlucky enough to be out there at night. I know he was just trying to scare us, but obviously vandals and vagrants actually had hung out there.

Many, many times while we were driving down that road, even after we moved away, I'd see a man walking down the road with his dog. I used to imagine stories as to where he was going. Perhaps he worked at the duck farm or the cemetery and was allowed to take his dog with him. Perhaps he lived at the one very old house that still stands at the corner of Agua Mansa and Rancho and just liked taking walks with his dog. I never knew. He was perhaps middle-aged and wore a dark jacket--perhaps flannel or wool--with an indistinct plaid design, and very beat up, faded dungarees--maybe a pair of overalls. He also wore a beat up, light, khaki brown hat with a brim. I could never see his face that well because his head was always down, but in back where I could see his hair, it was whiting, so I guessed at his age. The dog was medium-sized with fairly short fur, of a light color. Maybe light brown or dirty white. As I said, I saw him so often, I thought nothing of him. I even saw him later on when I worked in a town east of Agua Mansa Road and had to pass by that corner where the house stands. I was with my dad and I thought to myself, that guy must be old now, but he's still walking pretty well for his age. He had a dog with him--one I thought was just similar-looking to the one he used to have.

A couple of days ago, I read on the internet that this man had been sighted since way before I ever saw him. One guy reported that he used to drive down that road in the 1950s as a teenager and saw the man and his dog. Most of the other sightings reported that the man would step out in front of their cars, then just as they hit the brakes, he would disappear.

It turns out that my sisters saw him, too--we just never discussed it until I read that article. When asked, I described him and his dog. They were shocked, because they said that was exactly what they'd seen. One of my sisters said she remembered seeing him twice and both times he seemed to disappear. Once, in what she thought was a cloud of dust that must have been raised by a truck driving off-road through the dirt, and the second time on a foggy day. She said she thought the fog had closed in around him.

Over the years, there had never seemed to be anything strange to us about that man and his dog. Until I found the story of him on the internet.

Esoteric Studies, Part 2: Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull

What I've seen, I've seen because I wanted to believe. I…if you look too hard, you can go mad… but if you continue to look, you become liberated, And you become awake, as if from a dream… - Fox Mulder (Patient X, Season 5)

One of the inherent problems with people who explore these areas is the risk of accepting anything at face value, without one’s own inquiry. This has been a concern I have brought up previously. One should have a filter, discern, and accept that if there is enough forensic evidence that something isn’t necessarily true, then it probably isn’t. Why would the subject of crystal skulls hold such appeal? Actually, I think I understand the appeal. Archeologists keep making enough discoveries about ancient civilizations that end up altering our assumptions of those cultures–there are some known gaps in history that haven’t been explained–and it would demonstrate a hubris for any scientist or archeologists to assume that an ancient culture wasn’t more advanced. I don’t mean in the industrialized sense, as we have come to know it, but in the sense of cultures that had knowledge that we only ascribe to coming from western culture. The curiosity with Crystal Skulls speaks to a suspicion many share–that many conventional scientists aren’t giving the public the whole story, or that scientists are so blinded by their own assumptions, or hubris, they ignore data that is right in front of them.



We left the previous piece with the origin of the Mitchell-Hedges skull in question, that the origin had been cited in an anthropological journal which connected it to an art dealer named Sydney Burney, and the fact that Norman Hammond had failed to mention the crystal skull in his book about Lubaantum, which he had excavated, and had argued that the crystal skull had nothing to do with Lubaantum, and had noted “I have always thought it is most likely a memento mori–something designed to remind us that we all must die–of sixteenth to eighteenth century origin. While a Renaissance origin is not improbable, given the sheer size of the rock crystal block involved, manufacture in Quing-dynasty China for a European client cannot be ruled out.” Sotheby’s records show that Sydney Burney had put up the skull for auction in 1943, but since no one had bid no more than 340 pounds for it, Burney kept it, and it was apparently sold to Mitchell-Hedges in 1944 for 400 pounds.


Mitchell-Hedges on one of his expeditions.

Matters were further complicated when Joe Nickell pressed Anna Mitchell-Hedges about the story. She had explained that the skull had been left for security to Burney for a loan to finance an expedition, and that Burney had no right to offer the skull for sale. Yet there was no scrap of evidence to prove that the skull was in the possession of Mitchell-Hedges before 1944. Furthermore, a letter from Sydney Burney, dated March, 21 1933 to someone at the American Museum of Natural History declared that before Burney owned it, the skull was in the possession of the collector from whom Burney bought it, and before that, in the collection of an Englishmen. These disappointing details would confirm the “Mystery” of the skull as a hoax. Yet considering that, less crafted skulls in the British Museum are generally accepted as genuine; for example, the skull found at the Museum Of Man, near Piccadilly Circus in London was purchased from the New York Jeweler Tiffany in 1998 for 120 pounds.

Frank Dorland’s research helped to conclude that the skull was likely a religious object, its purpose was connected to divination, and it was probably kept on an alter. He was informed by friends of Mitchell-Hedges that the skull was brought back from the holy land by the Knights Templar during the crusades, and that it was kept in their inner sanctum in London until it found its way onto the antiques market. Due to the phenomenal success of the Knights Templar from 1118 until their demise in 1307 under the orders of King Philip IV of France who ordered mass arrests and executions, it is likely, due to their practice of ritual magic, as noted by scholars, the Mitchell-Hedges skull might have been one of their many treasures. Yet it will never be known, as King Philip never succeeded in getting his hands on their fabled ‘treasures’ if such a skull was part of their rituals.

Anna Mitchell-Hedges had claimed the skull held mystical properties, and in the seven years that Dorland conducted his research, he did describe hearing sounds of “high-pitched silver bells,” and sounds like an “a capella choir.” Furthermore, Dorland stated, while staring into the skull he saw “…images of other skulls, high mountains, fingers, and faces.” While this could be autosuggestion, the mystical aspects were reinforced by some proponents during a visit from “Satanist” Anton LaVey who called on Dorland with the help of an Oakland, CA newspaper. He visited Dorland, staying so late that the skull was not placed back in its safe deposit box. That night, there were many strange sounds that kept Dorland and his wife awake. When they got up to investigate, they found nothing, yet the next morning they found many of their belongings displaced, and objects moved across the room. Of course some could argue that LaVey, a notorious opportunist, could have engineered the incident to validate the skull had a “satanic” connection. But Dorland had offered his own theory about the incident – that LeVey’s ‘vibes’ and those of the skull conflicted, producing physical effects. This would reinforce Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic resonance argument, a kind of telepathy that Sheldrake believed has always played an active part in evolution. It needs to be noted that skeptics like Joe Nickell and Robert T. Carroll have dismissed Frank Dorland as a mere crystal carver, and freelance art restorer.

Further questions.

Of course, the rest of the story, to cite Paul Harvey, is complicated when you consider the pro and con mechanizations to declare the “Mitchell-Hedges” skull as a ‘hoax,’ as well as efforts that skirt the issue if the Mayan and Aztec cultures could have been more advanced than archeologists generally assume, a hubris of some scholars that one should be vigilant when accessing the merits of this case. It should be noted that Erich von Daniken’s ‘ancient astronaut’ argument in the case of the Mayans and Aztecs also demonstrates a kind of hubris in fairness–there could be a middle ground over how advanced these Pre-Columbian cultures were.

Believers in the idea that the skulls had a connection to Atlantis, in part based this assumption on maps that place Atlantis between the Americas and Europe, as well as psychic comments from Edgar Cayce that described cities in Atlantis being controlled by crystal technology.



Joe Nickell(1) has cited the work of Ian Freestone, which had concluded the skull was likely a fake, apparently fashioned from a lump of poor quality Brazilian crystal. The skull’s cutting and polishing was done at a lapidary in nineteen-century Europe, and the work of Jane Walsh, an archivist at the Smithsonian, who found documents showing that two of the known crystal skulls were sold to the same man, a French collector of Pre-Columbian artifacts, Eugene Boban. The British Museum purchased its skull from Tiffany’s and in turn, which had bought it from Boban. It has also been argued that a possible source for many of the crystal skulls was the renowned gemstone center of Idar and Oberstein in Germany. Scholars have noted that the area underwent a resurgence in the1870s with the shipment of Quartz crystals from Brazil.


While one has to accept these points as likely, I have noted that many skeptics cite Joe Nickell’s work as gospel, or regurgitate Walsh’s and Freestone’s work. I opted to do my own inquiry to help answer several salient questions; could the Aztecs or Mayans have had the skills, Pre-Columbian, to craft with quartz such equivalent skulls? Was there any evidence beyond Pre-Columbian work with ceramics that these cultures were sculpting with quartz? While Mitchell-Hedges’s credibility is questionable, why the overwhelming effort to question the credibility of Eugene Boban, Frank Dorland, and others who have done their own research?

My first efforts were to inquire to an archeology professor about these questions. I found a Professor emeritus from Berkeley’s Anthropology department, 20-years-retired John Graham, that offered some interesting comments about the Mitchell-Hedges skull. Noting that “The Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull is an impressive object of splendid craftsmanship.” The professor further noted that it was in the hands of a Marin County dealer many years ago, and was brought to the professor on several occasions in the hopes of authenticating the piece. He added, “To the best of my knowledge there isn’t even the most minimal evidence of any kind to support a claim of pre-Columbian New World origins.” Personally, he observed he has read Mitchell-Hedges’s publications, and concluded that “the man fabricated all sorts of ridiculous claims for sensational purposes and personal aggrandizement.” The professor also noted that the skull had been examined from a technical standpoint by various reputable specialists, and as far as he was aware, the evidence pointed to a comparatively modern origin. I wasn’t able to pose further inquiries to the professor regarding other nagging questions about the issue of pre-Columbian artisans, and had to look further on my own.

My speculation and question has been: Could such work have been produced by superheating blocks of quartz into a oval shape, then shaping the details while cooling? Quartz crystal melts at 1670 degrees. The most cited civilizations that might have had the means to melt, and have found a way to melt such crystal is Egypt. The most common explanation would be the use of copper saws and fine sand combinations for cutting granite and marble. One anonymous scholar who’s an expert in Mesoamerica, noted that stone construction was usually made of limestone. Another scholar noted that Peru used harder stones: In the Inca capital of Cusco they used stone like andesitic or metamorphosed basalt. Kiln temperatures, for example, in the Peruvian Andes dating from around 800-700 (Middle Cupisnique Period), Batan Grande, ranged between 650 to 800 degrees, which comparatively makes it not likely that the Aztecs or Mayans had the means to melt quartz crystal blocks to the necessary temperatures,(2) which also makes the argument difficult that Pre-Columbian cultures could have had the means to craft such large scale crystal work.

Yet, some conclusions might not be so cut-and-dried when you consider examples of Pre-Columbian work that used crystal. One example would be an Aztec crystal ear spool, and another would be a Huari mosaic mirror circa 650-800 A.D.(3) Nevertheless, there have been arguments that the melting of quartz could have been achieved through the use of mirrors and sunlight as suggested by some. However, researcher Mark Chorvinsky has cited other examples (4) that demonstrate that Pre-Columbians had the skills to manufacture objects out of hard quartz crystal.

There’s a process of elimination that one has to evaluate within the conventional argument that such quartz crystal would have had to come from the mountains of Brazil. There is evidence the Mayans were a seafaring nation,(5) and when you consider that geographically the nations of the Aztecs and Mayans overlap with the continent of Brazil, it becomes plausible that trading routes(6) had been established that would have granted access to the quartz in question.

Philip Coppins (7) has been highly critical of the conventional thinking by most archeologists that the origins of most crystal skulls (8) were post-Columbian. He has argued that most crystal skulls are likely to have originated in Central America and may have performed an important role in re-enacting Mayan creation myths. He has disputed Freestone’s arguments that such artifacts were 19th century European in origin, and has pointed out that Freestone has acknowledged that it doesn’t amount to cast-iron proof. He has also disputed Jane Walsh’s conclusions, pointing out that the skull at the Museum Of Man–Musee de I’Homme–was sold by Boban. Boban was a controversial collector of Pre-Columbian artifacts who ran his business between 1860 to 1880. Though Boban is indeed likely to have placed the skull at Tiffany’s for auction, there was no hard evidence. He disputes her argument that the skulls’ manufacture were German in origin.

“Though Boban was indeed a controversial figure, he was, of course, no different from all the other operators on the antiquities markets in those days–some of whom made deals for treasures such as the Rosetta Stone or the Elgin Marbles that continue to upset entire nations from which they were "exported."

However, there is no evidence–not even circumstantial–that Boban sourced these skulls from Germany. It is logical to conclude that, as Boban operated in Mexico, he may have acquired the skulls in Mexico. It would be completely logical to assume that if they are Aztec in origin, they were offered on the Mexico City antiques market where Boban picked them up. It is the most logical scenario, yet academics seem to prefer the modern German fabrication theory for which there is no evidence. Why? Perhaps they prefer to label them as fakes so as to evade potential claims from Mexican authorities?”

This raises an interesting point; could there be efforts to evade Mexican authorities, or to conclude such items are post-Columbian to skirt around the narrative that suggests that Pre-Columbian cultures could have been more advanced than assumed? Coppin has further argued that Walsh and her colleagues have presented Boban as a charlatan, yet they have failed to report that Boban had owned genuinely ancient artifacts, had written a scientific study–“Documents To Serve The History of Mexico”--and led his own crusade against frauds, such as in 1881 when he spoke out against forgeries that were being made in the suburbs of Mexico City. Coppin also noted that the source for questioning Boban’s credibility came from a single source, a competitor named Wilson Wilberforce Blake. Coppin argues that no clear evidence exists to question Boban’s credibility and that Blake attempted a smear campaign as he was after Boban’s share of the marketplace.

Another silent point that Coppin has made regarding archeological testing that proves such skulls were post-Columbian in origin is as follows:

The problem of the crystal skulls is that they are made of crystal. Quartz crystal does not age; it does not corrode, erode, decay, or change in any way with time. It cannot be carbon-dated. A skull could be hundreds if not thousands of years old, yet still look as if it was made yesterday–and vice versa. Hence, other means of dating had to be devised, and so evidence of skulls having been polished with wheels has become the key determinant of whether they are modern/post-Columbian or "genuine" archaeological artifacts.

While Coppins reviews the new age argument, that such skulls were the constructions of extra-terrestrials, or the remnants of a lost civilization read as Atlantis, or the claim that the skulls’ origin is German, he points out a fourth option: that many of the skulls were indeed pre-Columbian. He cites one skull owned by Norma Redo, as a skull that supports a large crucifix, showing similar “evidence” of wheelwork:

From his analysis, archaeologist Dr. Andrew Rankin argued that the skull was sculpted from the same crystal as that of the crystal goblet from tomb no. 7 at Monte Albán, which is an uncontested archaeological find. Furthermore, the 1571 hallmark on the crucifix is also deemed to be genuine, thus in general excluding the likelihood that this skull is of 19th century European fabrication. In short, this hard evidence confirms what Michael Coe has argued: that the Mayans apparently do seem to have been able to work with crystal...

Further pointing out that in the mid-19th century, English archeologist Sir John Layard excavated the remains of Babylon and Nineveh, where in 1850, during the excavation of the throne room of Assyrian King Sargon II’s place, he discovered a lens that was dated 721-705 BC, and it is considered to be the first used–or found–convex lens. It is indeed extraordinary that such high technology was used in the 8th century BC. As pointed out by Coppins, most archeologists continue to deny the existence of such lenses, or a recent find in the Idaean Cave in Crete of two rock crystal lenses of good optical quality, suggesting that the use of such lenses was widespread throughout the middle east and Mediterranean basin over several Millennia.

Taking into account some of these points, while Mike Mitchell-Hedges might not be credible, the question of the credibility of a number of crystal skulls might not be so easy to conclude. Aside from the argument that their origin was tied to Atlantis or ancient astronauts, it is possible that certain cultures deemed not on par with ancient western based civilizations, could have been more advanced than assumed (9). We simply don’t have concrete evidence as of yet, to alter the assumptions about certain Pre-Columbian New World cultures, but indeed gaps in history continue to surface from time to time that shake the foundations of what is known.

The point of this exercise was to encourage the reader to do their own investigative inquiry on any given subject, and not just passively accept anything from single sources.

The truth of the Mitchell-Hedges skull might not be what many want to hear, but it could be the starting point to raise legitimate questions about the level of technical skills and advances that predominated Ancient civilizations, and how the demise of such cultures could be a learning tool for our future.

Special thanks to XScribe for editorial proofing.
Special thank you to Professor John Graham for his generous attention.

Sources:

‘The Mammoth Encyclopedia of the Unsolved” by Colin and Damon Wilson, published by Carroll & Graft © 2000

(1) http://www.csicop.org/si/show/riddle_of_the_crystal_skulls/

(2) Page 67 / 81 of 437 PDF: http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/archaeometry.pdf

(3) Page 19 / 6 of 34 PDF: http://www.doaks.org/resources/publications/doaks-online-publications/pre-columbian-studies/goldandpower/goldandpower01.pdf

(4) http://www.strangemag.com/crystalskull/britishmuseumcrystalskull.html

(5) Page 1 of 35, PDF: http://www.newworldexplorersinc.org/MayaSeafarers.pdf

(6) http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/1-CompleteSet/MES-90-L-D-Trade.pdf

(7) http://www.philipcoppens.com/mitchellhedges.html

(8) http://www.examiner.com/article/joshua-shapiro-on-journeys-of-the-crystal-skull-explorers?cid=db_articles

(9) http://starchildglobal.com/starchild/crystalskulls.html

Documentation Entry, 2012

In early March, I had an unusual brief experience that could be best described as a minor psychic download. Often when I take brief rests - power naps - I will experience ‘micro dreams,’ - mental flashes. These are often images, brief voices citing names, musical phrases, dreams, the usual things people experience with free association unconsciously. Yet the context of what happened is important. From January until March, I had been steeped in reading C.G. Jung’s work, and I was also partaking in a ritual of hospital visits for a relative who was getting a weekly treatment, and I would take a rest in the lounge, and usually these waits would be a couple of hours. While resting, I had an experience that lasted for only a few moments, if not a micro second. After this occurred, I shared this experience with acqaintances on Facebook, and I was surprised by how consistent the reactions were with related experiences.

What happened didn’t feel like a typical micro-dream, or something you experience in that twilight space of a light sleep; somehow this felt a little different, more specific, a random moment that felt directed.

March, 2012 sun flare activity.

I had a rapid series of mental still images; mental photos of night skies, Earth bound events - auroras in various forms, light streaks, auroras in the shapes of gaseous spiral nebulas, gas orbs, and a rainbow at night. This happened on the cusp of Solar events that occurred in March, and more to the point, these images seemed like visual premonitions of future events unrelated to the solar activity in March. These nebulaes seemed like symbolic messages, and seemed related to the worm hole spiral that occurred in Norway the previous year.

As previously commented on, Norway’s Spiral projection from December 2009.

At first, I was going to just leave it as a mental note and discard it from my attention, but perhaps the impact of re-reading Jung’s work told me to pay attention, and be mindful of this as an illustration of Jung’s Collective Unconscious. While I am aware for some their reaction would be incredulous for me to suggest the following, I have to wonder if this experience would have to qualify as a physic impression, beyond the mental purging of my unconsciousness of things witnessed but not consciously processed, as a Freudian would argue, but something received by an outside collective energy.

The experience reminded me of how creative inspiration often seems to operate within myself. Creative ideas often happen in my mind at random, when I least expect it, and often when I am in a relaxed state. Creative inspiration isn’t something I can just call up at request. There’s a nebulous aspect to inspiration that no creative person can fully answer.

While I don’t buy the Hollywood depiction of psychic phenomenon, nor buy that every psychic palm reader or medium that advertises in your local neighborhood is legitimate, I now have to wonder if psychic impressions are far more subtle, brief, mundane, and random than we have been led to believe…and that everyone might indeed have the capacity for it, if they pay attention to the clues.

That psychic phenomenon and intuition, are and aren’t as we assume, but just as interesting.

A number of people have shared with me their experience of having brief visions during a hospital visit, and have suggested that the stress of such an environment left them open to such an experience. There has also been a lot of circumstantial data that traumatic events leave one open to psychic experiences. Yet I don’t know if trauma has to necessitate a gateway to psychic events; if so, that would seem to be a cruel price to pay in order to expand one’s consciousness, and I do wonder if there isn’t another way to achieve the same goal.

Within a similar timeframe, there were a series of solar flares that heightened activity with the Aurora Borealis, and the flare from the sun that some have hypothesized as a ‘star gate’ opening.
The image also reminded me of the initial poster for Star Trek: Generations, a story that featured a plot point that dealt with an energy field known as the ‘nexus’ – an idealized alternate dimension. Then there are the usual sonic flares depicted in Star Trek when a federation ship was moving out of warp speed.

Sun flare events occurred March 12th, 2012, as reported in the UK daily mail; my experience occurred days prior to it. The ST: Generations poster from November 1994, tag line is interesting: “Two Captains, One Destiny.” can the tag line have multiple interpretations?

But by writing this acknowledgment of that experience, when I have spent years – decades -- not directly experiencing anything that would be deemed as ‘paranormal’, while maintaining a fairly open mind on the possibilities and a life long fascination interest in these areas. Writing this means that I have to claim the experience, and move closer to accepting these areas as legitimate. There’s a certain risk in doing do, notwithstanding that risk of consternation from debunkers and skeptics that it was a ‘trick of the mind,’ or an ‘overactive imagination’. There’s the psychological risk to incur.

I have described myself as agnostic and have characterized myself, like Fox Mulder, as someone who ‘wants to believe,’ yet I have held no personal experiences that would alter my perception on the issue. I have remained fascinated, yet neutral on the possibilities.

This has been a dilemma, and it reminds me of a key plot element in the season one episode, “Beyond the Sea” when Scully is visited by the spirit of her just deceased father. Scully is afraid to share the experience with Mulder, feeling that by doing so, she would have to acknowledge that such unexplained phenomena exist, stepping beyond her rational scientific point of view, that the acceptance of such possibilities would act as a kind of apotheosis, or aposiopesis, or a posteriori- a breaking off, or moving forward from comfortable convention, a fear of accepting something intangible.

This same kind of fear has been seen in countless examples of mythologies or religions, where a protagonist faces a trial by fire. Early in a common print editions of C.G Jung’s Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious,* he shares an account of a protestant Theologian. After Jung has defined water as spirit that has become unconscious, Jung writes the account:

The Theologian dreamed he saw on a mountain a kind of Castle of the Grail. He went along a road that seemed to lead straight to the foot of the mountain and up to it. But as he drew nearer he discovered to his great disappointment that a chasm separated him from the mountain, a deep, darksome gorge with otherworldly water rushing along the bottom. A steep path led downwards and toilsomely climbed up again on the other side. But the prospect looked uninviting, and the dreamer awoke.

Jung further hypothesizes that the dream meets violent resistance from the conscious mind. Aspects of this analogy very much resonated for me; this hesitancy that I have to contend with might be a protective mechanism, a concern that by embracing the possibility, by delving deep into the ‘rabbit hole,’ it could lead to enlightenment… or self-destruction, or to summarize, a leap of faith.

Indeed, there’s a real psychic and psychological risk to delving too quickly into these areas without being prepared. One of the problems with LSD and Hallucinogens, and in experimenting in them, without understanding the ritualistic aspects, that there’s a certain process that one should follow before entering into such spiritual openings.

Perhaps the solution is a gradual progression. There are countless examples of people who gain fame and notoriety without it being earned, without that notoriety being gained over a gradual progression, in clear steps, and they lack any coping mechanism. Opening up to these experiences might need to be a gradual process.

Fox Mulder’s passion and obsession in exploring the unknown was so great that, in effect, by the end of season seven, he had become an X-File. While it was transformative, it also came at a price.

Yet perhaps these concerns are unfounded. Perhaps one will only take in and perceive what one is ready to. There are certain experiences I would not care to go through. When you consider the frightening accounts of alien abduction scenarios, poltergeist events, or the more aggressive Cryptozoology incidents, I would not want to go through such incidents. Yet I would welcome encounters from a distance, such as a UFO sighting, glimpsing a spirit.

In other words, an apotheosis that confirms there’s something greater than ourselves.

Skeptical of the Skeptics

An on-line acquaintance of mine, Trevor Tocco, and someone I connected with through Chris Knowles Secret Sun, wrote the following terrific piece - which Trevor graciously agreed to have us re-print for the Lexicon blog - This offers a balanced overview of the contemporary ‘skeptic’ movement that has dominated certain areas of scientific inquiry. Skepticism has its place when it is founded on the scientific method – ala Dana Scully, the problem lies when such a foundation is built more on a ‘feeling’ in place of legitimate research, and inquiry. Ultimately, the end game, like all others in life should be the pursuit of Veritas. The question that is explored is if the skeptic movement is built upon such a pursuit.

Skeptical of the Skeptics by Trevor Tocco

According to Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, the word “skepticism” means “the philosophical doctrine that the truth of all knowledge must always be in question and that inquiry must be a process of doubting” (“Skepticism”). There is a movement known as the Skeptic movement which prides itself on debunking claims such as UFOs, ghostly phenomena, the occult, and many other bizarre topics. The movement promotes “freethinking” and “rationalism” in its crusade against religious fundamentalism and con artists. Even mainstream science and society has practically elevated such members as James Randi, Penn Jillete, Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, and others to sainthood. However, even though skepticism is a good thing, the Skeptic movement has taken the word as their own and skewed its meaning. Despite being labeled as scientists, the methodology used to “disprove” such things as UFOs and the occult may suffer from flaws. The same can be said about the movement itself. The reasons for this include inaccurate methodology, the hypocrisy of the movement, and even the scientists, along with sci-fi authors, that the movement frequently brings up would be considered “kooks” by today’s standards. Even if there is no proof of UFOs or any other weird topic, that does not mean we should not be skeptical of the Skeptics.

One of the main problems with the movement is that they use faulty methods and so-called experts. The movement continually cites people such as James Randi, Richard Dawkins, or Christopher Hitchens when supporting an argument. However, certain “experts” lack scientific credentials. It is true that this can also be said about fringe research (the actor Dan Aykroyd doing a documentary of UFOs), but when leaders of the movement proclaim themselves to be “experts” (as well as by the media), it should be known if they have knowledge of the subject. Even though Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, more revered leaders, such as Randi and Penn Jillete, have more background in entertainment than science. Randi dropped out of high school and joined the circus while Jillete graduated from the Barnum and Bailey Clown College. “He’s hell-bent on tearing apart anyone he deems a kook, including distinguished scientists and Nobel Prize-winners. This is amusing, as Randi has no scientific credentials whatsoever (although he did once write an astrology column for a Canadian tabloid and host a paranormal-themed radio show).” (Alfvegren).

Then there is Randi’s Million Dollar Challenge, a method used by the James Randi Educational Foundation to determine if someone has supernatural abilities. Even though it is praised for “exposing con artists,” there are some who point out that it is a scam. The complaints leveled against it include the length of time it takes can be corrupting to evidence, the fact that all evidence is surrendered to Randi or any other monitors, and even the prize is actually in the form of bonds. Of course, the main aspect of the challenge is “can it be replicated?” However, a recent New Yorker article explains how even this can be problematic: “But now all sorts of well-established, multiple confirmed findings have started to look increasingly uncertain. It’s as if our facts were losing their truth: claims that have been enshrined in textbooks are suddenly unprovable. This phenomenon doesn’t yet have an official name, but it’s occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology.” (Lehrer). So a simple “background check” can certainly raise questions when the person or group being checked uses faulty methods.

A major concern about the movement is the level of hypocrisy. The movement claims it supports freethinking, but they insult anyone who disagrees with them or they label them as “pseudoscientific.” The movement claims it revolves around scientific progress, but whenever a claim is made that could be a major discovery if proven, the leaders tend to treat it like a joke. Even though there are things that have been proven to be pseudoscience and superstition, other claims, such as UFOs or even magical traditions in some cases, can benefit from research, but these topics are largely ignored. Also, as cliché as it sounds, many major discoveries were considered ridiculous at one point, most notably claims made during the Renaissance. Another hypocrisy is how the movement fights against religious fundamentalism, but it has become no different than its enemy. When discussing the politics of the late Christopher Hitchens, Jeff Sparrow explains that contrary to the opinion of his more liberal admirers, the “atheist Hitchens” and the “political Hitchens” were one in the same as he praised Bush’s cluster bombs. (Sparrow). It seems pretty clear that the Skeptic movement is not based on the foundations of “rationalism,” but a biased agenda no different than an extremist group.

Then there is another interesting point: How certain scientists, and even sci-fi and comic writers, are quoted and praised by the movement, despite the fact that these particular people displayed an interest in fringe topics! Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, once tried to make a device to contact the spirit world. Nikola Tesla was likewise interested in the weird, up to the point where he has now reached celebrity status in the paranormal community. The movement also praises Sir Isaac Newton, yet Newton was involved in the occult world, notably alchemy. Then there are icons of sci-fi, fantasy, and comics that showed in interest in the paranormal. Even though it cannot be said for all of them (i.e. Isaac Asimov), some of the icons of the genre, notably Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, Philip K. Dick, and even Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs, displayed in interest in the occult, UFOs, etc. Kirby (Captain America, X-Men, The Hulk, etc.), Dick (who wrote the stories that would become Total Recall, Blade Runner, The Adjustment Bureau, and many others), Moore (Watchmen and V for Vendetta), and a list of others have made marks on pop culture, but what most people don’t realize is that many of the themes in their works are elements of the paranormal and occult, spurred on by their interest in these topics. Of course, figures such as Verne (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter of Mars), and most notably Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) were involved in spiritualism, which isn’t surprising since they were around for the Victorian occult explosion.

Not to mention sci-fi conventions that feature Skeptic tracks, despite the fact that John Whiteside Parsons, one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and attendee of some of the first sci-fi conventions, was an associate of famous (or in some circles, infamous) British occultist, Aleister Crowley. Author Christopher Knowles explains in his book Our Gods Wear Spandex: “Although most of us don’t realize it, there’s simply nothing new about devotion to superheroes. Their powers, their costumes, and even their names are plucked straight from the pre-Christian religions of antiquity. When you go back and look at these heroes in their original incarnations, you can’t help but be struck by how blatant their symbolism is and how strongly they reflect the belief systems of the pagan age. What even fewer people realize is that this didn’t occur by chance, but came directly out of the spiritual and mystical secret societies and cults of the late 19th century-groups like the Theosophists, the Rosicrucian’s, and the Golden Dawn.” (Knowles, p.18). Despite the high rate of scientists and sci-fi fans who promote the ideals of the Skeptic movement, many of their heroes would be considered “kooks” by today’s standards. Many would probably ask “What about the lack of proof?” This can be a tricky question. On one hand, there has not necessarily been “solid” proof of otherworldly (or inter-dimensional) visitors or the effectiveness of magical practices. On the other hand, these ideas were spawned by some phenomena rather than simply being randomly thought up. For example, many Skeptics will explain how there is no “solid proof” that our ancient ancestors were visited by “ancient astronauts.” However, the reason why this theory is prominent is not because it was randomly thought up, but because of the similarities between what the ancients recorded and what is being reported today. It might not be “solid evidence,” but it could be evidence of some phenomena. Also, the Skeptics would probably say “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” But what classifies as extraordinary evidence? The idea that the earth is round or that humans evolved from chimps probably sounded extraordinary to people. Then there is also the risk of Skeptics claiming that a piece of evidence “is not evidence” and the requirements are increased.

Another question would be “What about how crazy proponents of the paranormal can sometimes be?” It is true that there are proponents of the paranormal that can be “crazy.” Even other proponents will agree. However, that would also mean that the idea that “all paranormal researchers are crazy” is a generalization. An example is how the Skeptic movement sometimes views people interested in the paranormal no differently than “religious nuts.” First, not only is this still a generalization, but certain proponents of the paranormal chose this as an alternative to organized religion. Ancient Astronaut Theory seems to be an alternative view to the ideas of mainstream religion, not to mention the occult explosions of the Renaissance and the Victorian era were reactions to the dominance of mainstream religion. As for credibility, Skeptics like Randi and Jillete lack credentials while writers of paranormal topics do have credibility. Jeff Kripal, whose book Mutants and Mystics explores the relationship between sci-fi and the paranormal via the experiences of Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Whitley Streiber, etc., is a professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought and even Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University. Jacques Vallee, who not only claims that we have been seeing UFOs for centuries but that they may actually from higher dimensions, holds degrees in mathematics and astronomy and has been a research assistant at MacDonald Observatory.

Jacques Vallee

Then, the big question could be “Why does it matter?” Why does any new discovery matter? From the discovery of fire to the flight of the Orwell brothers to the establishment of robotics, there was never really such thing as an “insignificant discovery.” What if we discovered that the beings we call “aliens” were real? Or that we were capable of talents we only dreamed of? Things like this could change many worldviews and, in the process, the world. Whether it would be positive or negative or somewhere in-between is unclear, but it would still have an effect on the status quo.

The views of the Skeptic movement are popular in our society. However, the movement’s claims are built on faulty research, hypocritical ideas, and contradicts the ideas of the figures that the movement praises. Despite its popularity, the Skeptic movement suffers from fallacies and hypocrisy, so who’s to say that UFOs are not extraterrestrial (or maybe inter-dimensional) craft, or that we may be capable of talents beyond our wildest dreams?
  
Works Cited  

1. Alfvegren, Skylaire. “The Problem with James Randi and his Foundation on the Paranormal, Pseudoscientific, and Supernatural.” Skeptical Investigations. 26 January 2006. Web 

 2. Knowles, Christopher. Our Gods Wear Spandex. San Francisco: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2007. 

Print 

3. Lehrer, Jonah. “The Truth Wears Off.” The New Yorker. 13 December 2010. Web. 

4. Sparrow, Jeff. “The Weaponization of Atheism.” Counter Punch. 9 April 2012. Web.

Reconstructing: Urban Legends

The X-Files, in part, often referenced urban legends in their stories, and it’s a fascinating subject within esoteric studies, yet, it’s also a term that is as frequently as overused as ‘paranormal’. The term has also become so nebulous, that one must try to define what should qualify as an ‘urban legend’. Folklorists have their own definitions of what makes an ‘urban legend’, and many academics disagree on whether urban legends are, by definition, too fantastic to be true, or partly based on fact, or a little of both. The Webster definition of an Urban legend is – "a modern story of obscure origin and with little or no supporting evidence that spreads spontaneously in varying forms and often has elements of humor, moralizing, or horror."

Urban Legends aren’t easily verifiable, by nature. They are usually passed on by word of mouth or, - more commonly today – via E-mail. The rumor or gossip aspect of the tale makes it virtually impossible to find the original source of the story. There’s the cliché of Alligators in the sewers, but the range of subjects is far more varied, and the history more interesting then some might consider. Folklorist at the University of Wales, Mikel J. Koven, has commented: "Life is much more interesting with monsters in it, it’s the same with these legends. They’re just good stories."

Jan Harold Brunvald wrote in his 1981 book – "The Vanishing Hitchhiker" that "The lack of verification in no way diminishes the appeal that urban legends have for us. We enjoy them merely as stories, and tend to at least half-believe them as possibly accurate." he further added that urban legends have "a strong basic story appeal, a foundation in actual belief, and a meaningful message or ‘moral’"

While many urban legends are often false, that’s not always the case, a few turn out to be true. Many are inspired by an actual event, but evolve into something different in their passage from person to person. I illustrated that point on the X-Files Lexicon years ago with my article on the Jersey Devil, the ‘pass-it-on’ phenomenon. Which we’ll go into later.

In certain cases, some widely discredited information on a subject is lumped into the urban legend category; one example could be the belief that you will pass all of your college courses in a semester if your roommate kill themselves. Thematically while urban legends are all over the map, several elements show up repeatedly, there is the cautionary tale, or contamination tale. For example, organ harvesters, or the legend of coating tattoos with LSD to hook minors, although there’s no evidence that LSD is addictive in this fashion.

There’s the gossip aspect to an urban legend, and the assumption that a friend who passes on such a story could not lie, and there’s the assumption that if an urban legend is published in a newspaper – an ‘authoritative’ source, it must be true. One example of this could be the Halloween legend of razors in apples or needles in candy, I recall this hysteria in the late seventies over such a story, although there’s no documented cases of contamination of Halloween candy, but it has often been misreported by journalists, police officers, and authorities, bearing in mind that there is no infallible source of information.

Due to a lack of critical thinking in many cases, anyone can be duped into believing an urban legend simply due to our nature to trust, our unwillingness to investigate every single piece of information we are given. Another reason why such stories get passed on is due to their specificity, the details make them seem real. This specificity plays into our fears and anxieties about what could happen.

One of the key issues is to define what should qualify as an urban legend, there are a series of examples of contemporary legends that have a basis in truth. One being the ‘dead body under the bed Mattress’ – a couple check into a hotel room and have to deal with a foul odor in their room the entire night, only to find a dead body under the bed the following day, the staff having taken off the mattress to find a decomposing body. This has happened in Las Vegas, Kansas City MO, Atlantic City NJ, with several instances in California, and Florida.



The second being Funhouse Mummies, props at carnivals that turn out not to be paper mache, but human skin and bone. One example would be the production crew of "The Six Million Dollar Man", while filming at the Nu-Pike amusement park in Long Beach, CA in nineteen seventy six, they discovered that a body prop was in fact the criminal master mind Elmer McCurdy, who was killed in a shootout after robbing a train in nineteen eleven. McCurdy was embalmed by the local undertaker, who was apparently so pleased by his work that he propped up the corpse in his funeral home as evidence of his skills, and people paid 5 cents to see the corpse. After several years, two people who claimed to be McCurdy’s brothers, showed up to claim it. They actually were carnival promoters. The body toured America before coming to rest in Long Beach. Bear in mind that this was at the height of the P.T. Barnum exploitation era.



Another example would be the curiously realistic Halloween decoration of a person hanging from a tree, which turns out to be a genuine suicide. This happened in the town of Frederica, Delaware when a forty-two year old woman hung herself from a tree near a dusty road on a Tuesday night, and remained there the following day until someone realized it wasn’t a prop and called the police. This happened five days before Halloween in 2005.

Or the story of a teenager whom while pretending to hang himself in front of an audience, actually does. These types of incidents seem to be fairly common during Halloween, with many ‘haunt’ shows, usually implemented by securing the victim in a harness that supports his weight when they drop from the gallows so that the noose placed their neck doesn’t snap their neck or constrict their windpipe, unfortunately, these kind of stunts have gone wrong. In October 1990, it was reported in the Chicago Tribune, that seventeen-year-old Brian Jewell died performing such a stunt at a Halloween hayride. In contrast, there is the untrue urban legend regarding MGM’s "The Wizard of Oz" that a Munchkin committed suicide, hanging themselves on a prop tree, due to poor working conditions, but there is no basis in the story.

Still of the background that some perceived to be a suicide in 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz”.

Then there’s one of the ultimate urban legends, and one of the most universal, and potent of fears: to be buried alive. Not only has this happened, but in the past happened with alarming regularity. In the late 19th Century, William Tebb, a social reformer champion and British business man, tried to compile all of the instances of premature burial from medical sources of his day. Tebb managed to collect two hundred and nine cases of near premature burial, one hundred and forty-nine cases of actual premature burial, as well as a dozen cases where dissection or embalming had begun on a not-yet deceased body. Bear in mind these occurred before advances in medical diagnosis. But the concern over being buried alive was so great during that period, that the wealthy would secure "safety coffins" which would allow those inside a coffin to signal to the outside world, usually by ringing a bell or raising a flag. Even as recently as 2007, there are still cases of people waking up during an autopsy, after being declared dead, one example being Venezuelan, Carlos Camejo, thirty-three, who had been declared dead after a highway accident.



While the above examples seem rather mundane, then can offer a benchmark over what should qualify as an urban legend, as far as the basic definition.

Koven has argued that Urban legends are a good indicator of what’s going on currently in a society, "By looking at what’s implied in a story, we get an insight into the fears of a group in society." adding that urban legends "need to make cultural sense", that a lack of information coupled with such fears which tend to give rise to new legends: "When demand exceeds supply, people will fill in the gaps with their own information."

Which brings us back to criteria with how one might define a legitimate urban legend over something with no basis in truth – ultimately the criteria might involve corroborating evidence. When I wrote my piece on The Jersey Devil, I summarized, and concluded it as an ‘urban legend’, that is, the popular long held conception of the Jersey Devil as a hybrid beast might have no basis in known fact. Since the initial reports of the early 1900s, there hasn’t been any corroborating evidence regarding footprints, animal droppings, unidentified hair or skin fragments, unlike such evidence found with Sasquatch cases, to warrant it being dubbed as anything other than an urban legend, at least the old-school popular understanding of the Jersey Devil.

That doesn’t mean to say that it’s impossible that something exists in the forests of New Jersey that hasn’t been identified as of yet. I have had, over the years, personal correspondence from people who swear they’ve had Jersey Devil encounters, it might be a rare species that hasn’t been simply identified, as of yet. Chris Carter hypothesized it involved a small pocket of feral humans, it’s possible that the truth could end up being just as strange as the legend. But one shouldn’t take such legends at face value, they should seek corroborating evidence, read, research, and probe all aspects to a story, before drawing their own conclusions.

In essence, one should employ rigorous scrutiny when researching or defining this subject.

X-Files Adjacent: War of the Satellites

Nothing exists in a vacuum as far as creative influences. The following is the first of a trifecta of critical reviews concerning a group of late-50s, low-budget Sci-Fi and horror films. Chris Carter, within the last few years, has acknowledged (aside from the Night Stalker TV movies) that The Twilight Zone, and The Outer Limits, were an influence on him. Recently, I saw a series of films that might have possibly influenced the writers for such series as Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits.



Produced and directed by B-Movie king, Roger Corman, War of the Satellites (1958) capitalized on the satellite craze of the period, triggered by the launch of Sputnik 1. The story goes that Corman pitched the film to Allied Artists, strictly on the title alone, with no script and with the promise he would have the film finished and released in seven weeks. He made good on the promise. After being given a budget of 70,000 dollars, Corman along with writer Lawrence Louis Goldman and Irving Block, built a story after listing what sets would be needed to be built first, and then developed a script to fit around the logistics.

It is with little doubt that Roger Corman has become an icon in the industry and is probably responsible for launching more careers, in as much as potential filmmakers and actors through his ‘Corman school of filmmaking,’ than UCLA and USC combined.

While the film is flawed and typical of the kind of production values from that era (in spite of the fact it becomes apparent after watching for about ten minutes, that you must throw science completely out the window, and the film is so cheap that lounge recliner chairs were used for the seating aboard the spaceship), for everything this type of a film gets wrong, it’s interesting to see, thematically, what the film gets right.

Several sequences reminded me of something you might find in an episode of The Outer Limits, or Twilight Zone. This film ends up being an idea-driven film. Now whether that was by design or something the writers stumbled upon out of necessity is the real question.

It starred Dick Miller, Susan Cabot (a woman whose demise would be as tragic and bizarre as an X-File*), and Richard Devon. After the destruction of the latest spaceship of the Sigma project to pass through an energy barrier somewhere in the solar system, Dr. Van Ponder insists to his colleagues that he will continue. Two high school teens (in the most awkward and corny segment of the film), after seeing a falling star that crashes, discover an alien satellite with a message for the UN.

An alien race from the Spiral Nebula Gamma views the human race as an infection, further adding that they are displeased by our efforts to move into the stars, and explain that have created this space barrier to restrain humans from space exploration. Dr. Van Ponder announces to the press that he plans to captain his own ship in the next design. His friends Dave and Sybil agree to go with him. The doctors plans include building the ship to use photon propulsion to travel at the speed of light. After getting a call from UN Counsel Leader Hotchkiss about efforts of the UN to stop the project, Dr. Van Ponder’s car crashes as a result of alien beams from the skies. Once word has been received at the UN that Van Ponder has been killed, he miraculously appears, and funding moves forward.

Assurances are given to Hotchkiss he is fine, and we, the viewers have revealed to us that Van Ponder is an alien who can duplicate himself through astral means and convert his duplicate into matter. He briefly communicates with his alien superiors, advising stronger action, as the warning from alien beings have been ignored. Suddenly, global disasters are triggered around the world--floods, earthquakes, fires, and nuclear incidents--which cause the press to speculate the alien warning is connected to the episodes.

Dr. Van Ponder, under a ruse, has an unexpected change of heart, and plans to cancel the program, going so far as to write up a statement to issue to the UN, but Dave ignores his wishes, and while speaking at the UN, states they will continue, and he argues that it is precisely because the Gamma aliens do not wish humans to travel into space that the project must go forward, much to Dr. Van Ponder’s displeasure. Another scientist named Johnny swears he had seen Van Ponder in two places.

After a mishap with a blow torch to Van Ponder’s hand triggers Johnny’s suspicions that the doctor isn’t human (a sequence that one might see from The Outer Limits, or Twilight Zone), Dave grows suspicious. But Dr. Von Ponder convinces the project medical doctor, Lasar, that Johnny has been under too much pressure, and he is ordered to be grounded from the flight. Dave finds the actual remains at a junkyard of the car that crashed, but can’t warn Sybil, or the others that Dr. Van Ponder might be an imposter, before the launch countdown begins. Johnny has a change of heart, and due to a lack of astronomical engineers, is back on the flight. Dr. Van Ponder duplicates himself again, which Dave witnesses. Three ships are launched, each ship being part of the final space vehicle.

After the launch, separation, and assembly, Dr. Van Ponder confronts Johnny with an ultimatum, explaining his races’ intention, tells him that humans are mere children in the cosmos, and not ready for space travel, and that his race is acting on behalf of the best intentions for the human race. The impostor Van Ponder offers to give Johnny the same powers--beings that can convert energy into matter--but Johnny refuses, and is killed with a single touch (another sequence that one might expect to see on The Outer Limits or Twilight Zone). Sylvia walks in to find him dead, and the doctor explains that Johnny could not survive the stress of the launch.


Film Trailer - War of the Satellites (1958).divx by pogox

The doctor, as captain, announces to the crew his intention to build up enough solar energy to trigger the Photon drive and break through the barrier. If they were to reach the barrier before the build up, they wouldn’t be able to break through until they can reach such a velocity. Dave informs Sylvia that the doctor isn’t human, just as Dr. Van Ponder appears and warns him not to get out of line. After the space burial of Johnny, Dave speaks to Dr. Lasar in private and demonstrates evidence that Van Ponder is a carbon copy of the real man. Sylvia walks in and Dave persuades her. The doctor notes that Dr. Van Ponder hasn’t permitted a physical. Dave points out the doctor might not have a heartbeat. Dr. Lasar confronts Dr. Van Ponder about a physical, which he conveniently manages to avoid when the barrier appears. After speaking with the pilots, Van Ponder manages to change his physiology and create a heartbeat, but there’s a trade-off: He loses a number of his powers and becomes more human. After passing the exam, Van Ponder strangles Dr. Lazar, and it becomes a race against time for Dave and Sylvia to stop Van Ponder from destroying the ship, and allowing the Sigma crew to achieve deep space travel.

One of the first interesting memes is the idea of an alien race inducing natural disasters to retard the progress of the human race, as well as the idea that the aliens would view Earth as a potential threat. In some respects this film is the inverse of Robert Wise’s The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), an alien race that simply believes the human race must take responsibility with its use of atomic space travel. The further idea of an alien race passively intervening with the human race, short of invasion, isn’t new either.



Edward E. Smith, Ph.D or “Doc” Smith, as he is affectionately known, the father of the sweeping space opera, in his 1936 tale "Triplanetary," the first of his Lensmen series, deals with two alien races: The Arisians, human-like beings, and the Eddorians, transformative beings that are hard to describe. Both Arisians and Eddorians manipulate the development of the human race in a long-term breeding program with the intention that the human race create Lensmen and Boskone, men with higher powers who would play out an ancient struggle without their awareness of themselves as pawns. The long term struggle is focused on four solar systems: Sol III, Rigel IV, Velantia III, and Palain VII. Regarding Earth, both alien forces manipulate matters and play out the fall of Atlantis, the Fall of Rome, and the trigger of three major wars, 1918, 1941 (Smith’s prescient prediction about WWII), and a war sometime in the late 90s. Before these tales unfold in the far future. One interesting example could be cited here, from the end of chapter three:

Gharlane of Eddore looked upon ruined Earth, his handiwork, and found it good. Knowing that it would be many hundreds of Tellurian years before that planet would again require his personal attention, he went elsewhere; to Rigel Four, to Palain Seven, and to the solar system of Valantia, where he found that his creatures the Overlords were not progressing according to schedule. He spent quite a little time there, then searched minutely and fruitlessly for evidence of inimical activity within the Innermost Circle.

Of course The X-Files touched on the meme of rival alien factions within their own mythology. For example, the alien rebels who appeared, starting in season five, that were immune to the effects of black oil - and resisted the symbiotic / parasitical entity within.

Watching the film recently, and pondering the recent wave of current events, without the following point trivializing the tragedies in Japan, but considering the wave of earthquakes, tsunami’s, volcanic eruptions, tornados, and other global events, and while they might be the by-product of climate change, it would make sense for a powerful alien race to trigger such disasters to slow down our evolution as a species.

Bear in mind, that there have been claims by countless NASA astronauts, of information that has never been released for the sake of national security, by Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, former NASA chief Maurice Chatelain, Gordon Cooper, Edgar Mitchell (founder of Institute of Noetic Sciences), of UFO activity in space and an extra-terrestrial base on the Moon, (as argued by people like Richard C Hogland) with aliens that have made it very clear to NASA not to establish a lunar base or revisit the Moon. Certainly shades of the same themes / memes expressed in War of the Satellites.

UFO/AAT skeptics have pointed out that the above-listed themes have been so long running with Science Fiction literature and filmmaking, that these memes can give ammunition to such skeptics that genre pop culture influences shape belief systems of things that might not have a paranormal or unexplained basis.

What is interesting about these connections from a cultural standpoint and this ‘chicken or egg’ argument, is are these interests just random or part of a greater collective unconsciousness?

Indeed, what if truth is stranger than fiction.

Next up: Curse Of The Demon (1957)

*Susan Cabot died in 1986. Her son, who suffered from dwarfism and was on medication, bludgeoned her to death with a weight-lifting bar in her Encino home after years of psychological abuse, verbal abuse from the mother, coupled with an unhealthy relationship between them. He was arrested, charged with involuntary manslaughter and received a three-year suspended sentence.