The Gralien Report

The Tunguska Explosion of 1908 was a powerful explosion that occurred near the Lower Stony Tunguska River in what is now part of Russia (Krasnoyarsk Krai, now Russia’s second largest Federal subject), at around 7:14 a.m. on June 30, 1908. Legendary for its destructive power, the cause of the explosion has been debated for decades, which was said to have caused the sky throughout Western Europe to glow green after impact. Recent scientific data seems to lend to the common theory that the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment as much as 6 miles above the Earth’s surface was the cause of the destruction, but does evidence exist of a stranger, more out-of-this-world theory as to its cause?

ABOVE: Scorched trees at “ground zero” of the Tunguska blast site, circa 1927. 

According to Dr. Yuri Labvin, “an alien spacecraft sacrificed itself to prevent a gigantic meteor from slamming into the planet above Siberia on June 30, 1908.”
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A blog post at the Mind Hacks website today refers to a unique study published by The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, initially published in 1984, titled Hostage Hallucinations: Visual Imagery Induced by Isolation and Life-Threatening Stress. At a mere glance, the article is already of interest, as in many instances the “hallucinations” described by victims of torture and other intense stress involve out-of-body experiences and related psychic phenomenon. However, of particular interest to Gralien Report readers is the fact that, in addition to studies done with ex-prisoners of war, victims of rape, kidnapping, terrorism and robbery, there are also two cases detailed within the report that deal with “UFO abductions”. The article states that “Case 5, involving a prototypical UFO abduction, was included in order to compare the relatively dramatic, albeit rare and controversial, hostage experiences to those reported by victims in more common verifiable hostage situations.”

In addition to the analysis of two UFO abduction scenarios, I found it interesting that the article also refers to the Biblical account of Ezekiel early on, in a description of the hallucinatory experience among hostages in early history. In addition to being the earliest experience they listed, it is noteworthy that the article also looks at the case taking into consideration the Ufological perspectives insinuated over the years:

To my knowledge, the earliest account of a hostage experience was given in 593 B.C. by the Babylonian priest Ezekiel who described (as reported in the Bible) an abduction by “creatures” in a flying round bronze object. According to some contemporary interpretations, Ezekiel was taken hostage aboard a spaceship-type craft whereas other commentaries emphasize the possibility of hallucinations induced by staring at solar halos. Nonetheless, Ezekiel’s account details shock, feelings of floating, and perceptions of lights, colors, and mystical visions of God.

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During a recent email exchange I had with my friend Nancy Birnes, editor of UFO Magazine, it was brought to my attention that there has been concern among the production staff of History Channel’s UFO Hunters (of which Nancy’s husband, author Bill Birnes, is the star). Nancy tells me, “Pat U. was depressed at how the budgeting — or rather, the lack thereof — for really basic things was hurting the quality of the episodes.” Now granted, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the program’s future is uncertain, as constraints with the present economy are affecting virtually every industry; including television. However, Nancy tells me that these budgetary and other restrictions have caused some to “jump to the conclusion that there would be no Season 4,” which Nancy now says “is what the production team does believe.”

The good news, at this point, is that the network has made it clear that they have not reached a decision, as of yet. “Doesn’t look good, but not entirely bleak,” according to Nancy. Whatever the circumstances, if change can be made, now is the time to act.

If you enjoy History Channel’s UFO Hunters, and would like to continue following Bill Birnes and the crew as they push the boundaries (at least as far as television networks can allow), I encourage all the readers of this blog to take time to do one of two things:

Write to the network and let them know you would like to see more episodes by clicking this link:

History Channel Help Desk Online

…Or you can sign a petition by following this one:

http://www.petitiononline.com/uf0hunt/petition.html

Either way, it can’t hurt, and it just might help! Keeping hope alive, in these depressing financial times, is of great importance, as is the good work that Bill, Nancy, and the folks with UFO Hunters continue to do. I appreciate the concern of any who would be willing to act in defense of the longevity of this fine program.

Yesterday at the Above Top Secret website, a portion of a documentary linked to YouTube was posted which featured a film made by the famous UFO contactee George Adamski. Adamski is not widely heralded for being the most believable of all contactees, as many of his claims of encounters with aliens are considered too absurd for investigation (with one skeptic even calling him “the Ed Wood of contactees”; both a reference to the strange claims themselves, in addition to the science-fiction element common during his “meetings” with alleged Venusians).

Though the video in question certainly appears to depict one of the now-famous “trash can lids” known from past debunkings of UFO photos and films, there nonetheless appears to be a genuine point of serious debate regarding the odd nature of Adamski’s film. Below is the segment of the documentary featuring Adamski’s video, as well as a bit of commentary about it:

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In this video, a new documentary describes reports of real Vampires (called “strigoi” in Romanian) from Transylvania and surrounding regions:

The synopsis reads as follows:

Two American filmmakers go to Transylvania to collect stories of vampires (strigoi in Romanian), werewolves and ghosts. They find that belief in these creatures still exist in the small villages of the Carpathian mountains. This pod showcases interviews with Romanian villagers who share their experiences about vampires.

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Today while visiting a thrift store in my area in search of odd books, I found a copy of The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz. The book itself doesn’t focus on the anomalous, instead dealing primarily with the story of Rawicz, who at the time had been a prisoner who escaped with a small group of men from a Soviet prison camp in 1941. In order to make it to freedom, those who survived the ordeal were forced to travel out of Siberia and across China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, finally traversing the Himilayas into British India.

I recognized the book instantly, having heard about it before in various cryptozoological circles. Interestingly, one of the final chapters of the book is called “Strange Creatures”, and deals with a sighting of two Yeti during the men’s trek across the Himilayas. Having initially spotted them from a distance, Rawicz and his company had believed these might be bears or some other animals they might use for food. However, upon nearing their potential prey, they began to realize these weren’t any creatures they had ever seen before. Rawicz’s account of the strange sighting reads as follows:

“Two points struck me immediately. They were enormous and they walked on their hind legs. The picture is clear in my mind, stuck there indelibly by a solid two hours of observation. We just could not believe what we saw at first, so we stayed to watch… I set myself to estimating their height on the basis of my military training for artillery observation. They could not have been much less than eight feet tall. One was a few inches taller than the other, in the relation of the average man to the average woman. They were shuffling quietly round on a flattish shelf  which formed part of the obvious route for us to continue our descent. We thought that if we waited long enough they would go away and leave the way clear for us. It was obvious they had seen us, and equally apparent they had no fear of us.” 

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In keeping with my recent meanderings of the mind regarding Sasquatch language and the potential intelligence of the clandestine hairy ones, this story caught my eye:

Escape from Adelaide?

Karta, a 27-year-old chimpanzee currently residing in a zoo in Australia, decided recently that she wanted to try a change in scenery. Armed with a stick, the clever chimp jammed it into wires connected to an electric fence that surrounded her enclosure, then piled available debris next to it and proceeded to climb a concrete and glass wall.

Zookeepers called Karta’s actions “ingenious”, and said this wasn’t her first attempt at escaping or outsmarting her caretakers.

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Greetings all,

I will be guest-hosting Joshua Warren’s radio program Speaking of Strange again tonight (Saturday May 9th). I invite you to listen to the broadcast from 8PM to 11PM EDST by visiting the link below and clicking “listen live” in the drop-down beneath “Listen Now” in the toolbar (you’ll see this near the left hand side of the screen):

Speaking of Strange on News Radio 570 WWNC

As always, to call in during the program, dial us toll-free at 1-800-570-9962 from anywhere around the globe.  I’ll look forward to hearing your true reports of the strange and fantastic!

When studying reports of creatures like Bigfoot, it all-too-often becomes a mind-numbing exercise in attempting to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff. A counter-balance begins to emerge in the questioning mind which weighs evidence against ideas, science against skepticism, and in some instances, heart against hopes and desires. In wanting so badly to unravel the mysteries behind such creatures—and even if they don’t exist, to try and better understand ways in which so little as an imaginary presence still affects cultures the world over—the mind is easily stifled and fatigued, with little hope for new discovery left to the imagination. At such times, many a researcher has wished that they could be given definite answers, and perhaps some notion of worth and finality. Imagine if only it were as simple as being told to “just say the word”, and all the secrets of Sasquatchery could be ours for the taking!

In reality, although no clandestine evidence of creatures like Sasquatch can be obtained as simply as merely “saying a word,” the truth may still be that words potentially hold more information about the reality of Sasquatches than we have ever imagined previously. To understand exactly how involves wrapping one’s mind around the notion of a proto-language, that is, an ancient “Mother Tongue” from which all human language stems. By learning about this ancient ancestor of modern languages, might clues begin to emerge about the nature of Sasquatch, and if so, how? To understand this, we must first learn what proto-language is, and how it was discovered.

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According to Ben Goertzel, chair of the Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute, “The internet behaves a fair bit like a mind (and) it might already have a degree of consciousness”.

Could the net become self-aware?

Consciousness and artificial intelligence have long been an area of fascination for Francis Heylighen, who studies at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) in Belgium. Heylighen speculates how the internet may be capable, in some way or another, of becoming “a self-aware network that constantly strives to become better at what it does, re-organizing itself and filling gaps in its own knowledge and abilities.” This, essentially, suggests a pattern of organization similar to our understanding of what consciousness is.

Especially in film, extensions of people’s fears of machines becoming self-aware has been showcased in such futuristic thrillers as the Terminator series. In these films, a computer system called Skynet activates legions of robotic militants hell-bent on exterminating the human race. Similarly, mechanical jellyfish captors are the fiends who have enslaved mankind in pink bubbles of slime in the popular Matrix trilogy. And let us not forget Arthur C. Clark’s visionary work; going back a little further we see HAL from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, getting his feelings hurt after exhibiting his lip-reading prowess, only to try and kill protagonist Dave and the other astronauts in a manned Jupiter mission.

In spite of their superhuman abilities, one thing that these apocalyptic robotic villains did seem to lack was precognition; and yet it seems hardly surprising that scientists and economists alike are already tapping the Internet’s apparent abilities to “see the future” in an effort to predict trends in the global economy.

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