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VOL. 12

No.3

WHOLE No. 47

SUMMER 1979

..

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

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'SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE UNEXPLAINED'

VOL. 12, No.3

SUMMER, 1979

PURSUIT

Publisher
Robert C. Warth
Managing Editor
R. Martin Wolf

THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY

FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

Assistant Editor
Steven N. Mayne

FOUNDED BY IVAN T. SANDERSON

Consulting Editors
John A. Keel
Sabina W. Sanderson
Senior Writer
Curtis Sutherly
Associated Editors
John Guerrasio
Ziaul Hasan
Editor for the
United Kingdom
Robert J.M. Rickard
Contributing Writers
Charles Berlitz
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R. M. Wolf
Production
Martin Wiegler
Fred Wilson

Cover designed
byR. M. Wolf

Devoted to the Investigation of ''Things'' that are Customarily Discounted

CONTENTS
Page
The Synchro Channel
by Barbara Jordison ............................................................ 94
Let"s Test the Communication Hypothesis
by Barbara Jordison ............................................................ 95
Between the Plastic Eagle, Between the Mezuzah and the Crucifix, an Article of Faith
by Grace Undapresha .......................................................... 96
Neodino~aurs
by Ivan T. Sanderson .......................................................... 100
More on Extant Dinosaurs
by Dr. Silvano Lorenzoni. ...................................................... 105
Exegesis: Unexplained Data Related to United Flight 389
by E. MacerStory ............................................................ 110
How to "Fingerprint" a UFO and "Hear" Its Light
by Russ Reardon ............................................................. 112
ULF Tree Potentials and Geomagnetic Pulsations
by A. C. Fraser-Smith ......................................................... 114
The Weekend Effect: ULF Electromagnetic Fields, Powerline Harmonics.
and an Interview with Antony C. Fraser-Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . ....... 116
What to Believe-Or. Paring Down the Paradigm
by Dr. Arlan Keith Andrews, Sr .................................................. 119
The One PhYSical Experiment Impossible to Explain
byT. B. Pawlicki. .............................................................. 120
Metrification: Even Pyramid Power Won't Save the Sacred Inch
by Robert J. Schadewald ....................................................... 124
Ornithological Erratics: Winter 1978-1979
by Loren Coleman ............................................................ 125
UFOs Down Under and All Over
by Jon Douglas Singer ......................................................... 127
Symposium ....................................................................... 131
SITUations ...................................................................... 133
Book Reviews
by Robert C. Warth ........................................................... 138
The Notes of Charles Fort .......................................................... 139

The Society for the Investigation of The Unexplained 1979

94

THE SYNCHRO CHANNEL

by Barbara Jordison
of collecting the Synchro Data is described
THEin method
the Spring, 1978 issue of Pursuit; theoretically,
anyone is able to collect data via the experimental setup.
Briefly, to collect the Synchro Data an observer monitors
a broadcast of English text and, at the same time, reads
English text. Any words that are both heard and read,
at the same time, become the recorded data-along with
the clock time of occurrence.
"Data turns into information," says Jacques Vallee,
"only when someone asks a question about it!"l Although
he was talking with co-author Dr. Hynek about the storage
and retrieval of data in computers, it's a metaphoric gem
with algorithmic sparkle and it's applicable to the Synchro
Data.
Here is a typical example of a 5-hour data run. The
data were collected April 24, 1970:
~~-----------------

CST

12:50am
2:07 am
2:09am
2:10am
2:35am
3:35am
4:06am

Audio

heconomic"
"down"
0.15"
"23"
"down"

hprobably"
"15"

Visual

economic
down
15
23
down
probabilities
15

Probability
"average"

.06323
.05105
.07995
.08498
.05105
.06976
.07995

News Note: "Last week, ending May 1st, Dow Jones

Average at lowest in 7 years-since JFK in Texas time.
Off 13.66 for the week."
List the immediately visible characteristics which you
see in the data; there's one of Robert Anton Wilson's coincidental 23s, the timed intervals show an occurrence
pattern, there's redundancy in the message and there's
an oracle effect that only appears when the data series is
linked with the news of the day.
And after you've brought the valent details into awareness, think a moment about our long development from
oral cultural traditions, which were long ago directly transcribed into a written form. Adding, of course, what we
know of printed form and today's electronic media effects
on our awareness processes.
We seem to have a prototypical communication process. In Diagram I, I've borrowed the 'black-box' and
'real-line' technique to present the Synchro Channel as
an habitual 'programmed' route, over which the input
signals arrive at the 'brain-box.' Thence to the prOjected
'product,' the Synchro Data. The 'word-form' is conveniently consistent.
Since energy concepts can form a 'meta' system to the
diagram, all signals can be mathematically analyzed, and
a formula written for the channel's capacity for carrying
input signals through the whole Synchro Channel. At
least when the signal is in word-form, because noise is
considered a signal and is present.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

Now a signal can be added to a banking channel, in

such a way that it will route millions of dollars into a personal account. No doubt we'll learn more of something
that's called the 'nine's complement.' The point is that this
demonstrates, among other things, the concept that a
signal can change the channel over which it goes. (And
goe$, and goe$.)
ObViously, the world isn't yet safe for electronic banking
channels. Are electronics making' the world downright
unsafe for living channels? There's evidence that this is
happening. And our inner territorial rights are not highpriority legal rights yet. But bioentrainment is provable
'brain washing.'
At the moment, 'brain washing' is a term like 'propaganda,' it carries only negative valency. But when we call
it 'meditation' the idea is more acceptable. It's become an
individual responsibility to strengthen the inner freedom
from unwanted bioentrainment, while at the same time in
quest of new entrainments as we are free to follow inner
need to know and to experience living channels. Problems arise whenever those living channels are not recognized in the collective laws of the nations.
I can think of two recent cases. A boy in Florida was
defended on a murder charge by his attorney who tried to
link the crime, in a cause and effect way, to the material
on television. If bioentrainment was mentioned, I missed it.
And, second, there are the physical and other hidden
symptoms shOWing up in animals and families living around
high-tension electrical carriers. However, the answer isn't
"move to Canada," because (surprise!) the U.S.S.R. may
have been experimenting with signals aimed that direction.
It would seem we have two major recycling lessons to
learn. As we tune into the electronic input stage, the first
thing we meet is pollution and a total disregard for inner
territorial rights. That's junque and 'noise.'
However. we seem to have some protection. In telepathy experiments it reportedly has been shown that a
transfer of brain-wave pattern is possible between a human
sender and a human receiver. But there's no 1: 1 interpretation of any messages that are sent over such "biological radios." Well, individuals may not show efficiency
in this, but what of collective effectiveness? If your own
'natural communication channel,' as presented in the
diagram, ever carried an additional signal how would you
recognize it? And how would you interpret it?
Which brings us to an all-purpose question: "How do
we retrieve information about 'how to retrieve information'?" Given that we have data and we seek 'information,'
what do we understand by the term?
There are four approaches: (1) we intuitively know
what is meant by the word, but a context does influence
us, (2) information theorists mathematically measure it,
and carefully do not define it, (3) leaving this task to the
semantic and communication theorists, thence we arrive
at (4) synergetic approaches with new, often vague, retrieval rules-to find not only 'information,' but clues to
its polar opposite.
The concept we've come to know as UFOs better have
a high priority on the list of concepts to be redefined, "before transcendence past Piaget's Formal Operations
stage." 2

95

IInPU1i to ears

Brain/Mind
intercoM

.. Synchronous data: stored in

a written record

Input to eyes JW

Diagram 1: A Communication and Information Conceptual View of the Synchro Channel

Let me quickly ruffle through the Synchro Data record

book and find only the series of interest to 'Americans.'
"We like American kept free," (1972). "No like deal Federal no we guys good," (1972). "New noise tell American
past catalyst time," (1973). "America's/ American true/
truth back," (1978).
With over 1500 data entries recorded, you can imagine
my reluctance to present any more examples of the Synchro Data. I think the best way is to describe the method
of collecting the data and hope you're convinced to try it.
And if you do try it and don't collect any data, perhaps it's
just as well to keep studying and try again. Because there
are pitfalls to worry about, as a reporter, bylined Robin
Snelson, concluded a short report in the February, 1979
issue of Future: "The UFO phenomenon needs serious
study now, Vallee warns, 'before the new myth is created,
before the myth of extra-terrestrial revelation replaces the
myth of rational acquisition of knowledge'."
I doubt if a reshuffle of myths is sufficient.
There's another experiment to try, using the basic twoinputs of English text to the ears and eyes. Add a second

ear-input off a police band or something. I collected

'10-4' and 'car' before the drop in quality and frequency
of the data convinced me to discontinue the second earinput.
This brings up Robert Anton Wilson's collection of coincidental '23s.' Is it a collection of 'parity bits' which keep
the channel open? Is it more like a collection of '1O-4s'
which seem mysterious if you don't know the code? Or,
has he retraced an historical feedback loop and retrieved
a 23-code book?
If a vote is taken for the best underground book, Cosmic
Trigger gets my vote for the most interesting and the best
written, but I question its conclusions based on the evidence as he's presented it thus far.

REFERENCES
1. Hynek, J. Allen, and Vallee, Jacques, The Edge of Reality
(Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1975), p. 82
2. Brain/Mind Bul/etin, Volume 3, Number 22. October 2, 1978,
"Unitary Knowing-Intellectual Stage Beyond Science?"

LET'S TEST THE

COMMUNICATION HYPOTHESIS
by Barbara Jordison
of 1970 a series of lectures was organized
INatthethesummer
NASA Ames Research Center. The background
information-"from the question of the origin of the universe to that of the origin of life and the origin of intelligence" -was followed by a stepwise consideration of the
possible methods for interstellar communication. This
neatly packaged can of worms is available to the student
and the general reader, along with a 40-page bibliography
with references up to 1974. 1
While the UFOs merit only a brief dismissal comment,
ten scientists did go on record with their shared perspective that interstellar communication is a scientifically
plausible quest. Would that their talents had extended to
a discussion of the unscientifically plausible UFO sighted
by an astronaut.
Michael Arib summarizes the basic questions: "First,
are there 'intelligences' elsewhere in the universe? Second,
if there are, can we, at least in principle, communicate
with them? Third, if such communication is possible, how
might we implement it?"
ConSidering the possibility that we already may be
dealing with the second question, what form does he
think a communication will take? What can we expect?

"Sending a message," Arib says, "is not a matter of

phoning up Charles X who will be on a planet near Syrius
and having a chat with him about the latest ballgame
results. Presumably the message is going to be some sort
of encyclopedia, a distillation of much information."
In other words, we can expect a species-to-species message
and we cannot expect dinner guests. Of course he did
preface it with "presumably."
Let us assume that science fiction's 'star persons' are
born traveling, and they live and work in space merely
because they have solved some technological problems
and can maintain a permanent artificial environment and
tap an energy source that we are only slowly becoming
aware is there. Then let us ask ourselves, once again,
are we missing a message in the UFO reports? Specifically
a species-to-species message? One that is designed to
protect identities, and we have mistakenly assumed that
is the mystery for us to solve rather than our trying to
translate the message that is directed to us all.
When we put the UFO into the familiar context of a
parade-followed by a series of nervous reports to our
whole planetary classroom ("Show and Tell" speeches)the fact that the parade route has circled the earth, and
has been going on for years, is not emphasized by inexperienced parade-watchers. If there is a current repetitive response, it's the description of those 90-degree turns.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

96

They intrigue the technician in us; who doesn't want to be

the first kid on the terrian block to build their own working
model?
Of course with competition comes some faking and
stalling and a lot of evasive theorizing about who is sponsoring the parade. ("They are not real, it's all in your
head.") What we need is a practical technological breakthrough! Obviously in the transportation categories, and
not so obviously in the communication category.
That sign-using cousin of ours might be the favored
geo-transmission species. And the big-feet mystery animals
a long-term developmental link, in case plan-A fails.
Anything is possible in science fiction moods. Even whales
that sing a song of the seasons may be getting more direct
incoming signals than we humans.
If communication is our next assigned lesson, and it
seems it is, we need data to study. With Californian courage, B. Ann Slate opened a can of questions in 1978:
"From somewhere in the universe, another intelligence is
broadcasting messages to Earth. Perhaps these are being
beamed via channels still undetected-or attuned only
for certain individuals." 2 The retelling of their adventure
with a "cryptic message" is a valuable addition to the ongoing record.

However, it suggests to me that one of the problems

with data that are collected by automatic writing is the
tug to interpret the words as directive. rather than as reflective of a larger principle. The data, in other words,
carry a signal of the automatic writee's intercom. Interpretational comparisons are essential; the more the better.
All the methods of collecting potential incoming messages need study, but an open comparison is the best
way to evaluate the methods. Perhaps a Fortean orientation is ideal for translating any species-to-species messages?
If we find that pendulums, crystals or planchettes are
constellating only remnants from a bygone age, well ...
try the synchro-data method. J And remember to file a
report on your findings. hmm?
REFERENCES
l. Ponnamperuma, Cyril and Cameron, A.G.W., eds., Inter
stellar Communication: Scientific Perspectiues, (Houghton Mifflin Company. 1974); An Astronomy Book Club selection
2. Slate. B. Ann, "Search For California's Time Tunnel."
Saga's 1978 UFO Annual
3. Jordison, Barbara, "The Synchro Data," Pursuit, Vol. 11,
No.2 (Spring 1978), pp. 66-67

BENEATH THE PLASTIC EAGLE,

BETWEEN THE MEZUZAH
AND THE CRUCIFIX,
AN ARTICLE OF FAITH
by Grace Undapresha

I.
SNAKEOILSALESMENIN
A CYBERNETIC WASTELAND
HOSE not bludgeoned by the decade mongering
T
germane to the mid-sixties nor dematerialized by the
tacit rumbles of the current preface to the eighties, have
found out just how many wholes it doesn't take to fill the
Albert Hall. The generation of stern impartiality, most uncommon to the reflexive consumer, precludes wishful
thinking. To rational, Western man, psy. extra, meti;! or
paranormal forces, are alien forces which the state religion of science resists as theological residue. Yet 10% of
our network programming is devoted to precisely this
ethereal area.
According to the antennas of Time and Newsweek.
Fundamental Christianity is gaining ground faster than
the various brands of Eastern wisdom now showing on
the neighborhood shelves. Given that, one is not prone
to squirming beneath the wrath of commerce or allowing
one's vision to be ellipsed by the profit motive, are Scriptures a fair match for statistics? The relation of the slogan
to the sale is as known to the ad man as the wrinkles in
PURSUIT Summer 1979

the benign countenance of Mao have become known to

the populace of the People's Republic. Is there a difference
between seeking truth and seeking fact?
"Slap me twice then turn me around and ask if it was
nice," said the Yankee Oracle on January 27, 1978 in
the Albert Hall of the Americana Hotel where non-denominational void dippers gathered for the Spiritual and Psychic
Awareness Weekend. He stipulated that the investigators
of hearsay drank plenty of coffee and ate plenty of french
fries, i.e. armed themselves with enculturated fuel, before
venturing toward the precipice from which few returned
harbOring the disposition with which they began. Suppose
that the faith of 90 million Fundamentalists does not fit
the findings of the metaphysical gumshoe, or that when
Moses raised the Serpent for the Lost Children in the
desert, he was asking them to sublimate their sex energy.
What are the forces that change human nature and is it
possible to accelerate the process of evolution?
The seventh of the fourteen basic transgressions is the
telling of secrets to the immature or the uninitiated.
"Give not that which is Holy unto the dogs, neither
cast ye your pearls before swine lest they trample
them under foot and turn again and rend you"
MATTHEW 7:6

Just like the Danbury State Fair, one could see the nonexistent mounties groom the non-existent Clydesdales,
or sample some of Aaron Burr's ectoplasmic preserves.

97

Omens tacitly lingered, proclaiming the management's

refusal to bear the responsibility for the destiny of the
contents of your cranium. Psychics, Yogis, Doctors,
Astrologers, known professionals within their field, coagulated upon the non-site ready to illuminate your drama
and boost you toward the fountain of Ponce DeLeon. It
is the same non-story of how the teachings degenerate
into the practice of magic and fortune telling prior. to the
administration of authenticity. "Remember," said the caffeinated veteran dispersing his investigatory platoon,
"Everyone is here to make money."

II.
THESUTRAOF
PRIMEVAL DELUSION
The teachings are those of the dispersal and acquisition
of power, or the politics of juice and the percentages of
those who short out upon gaining mere proximity to it.
What have the old ways of magic, shamanistic ritual and
prediction to do with new modes of morality and multiple
ideological frameworks? The way one views gods, devas,
toothpaste and reruns of the Twilight Zone, is contingent
upon historical developments. The matrix of the contemporary spectacle is composed of psychoanalysis, the
electronic communications media and the collaboration
of corporations and centralized governmental structures
for the purposes of social management and capital accumulation. "Clairvoyant" in French, means "clear seeing."
To the ancient Egyptians psychics were called "mouthers,"
those through whom information flowed. The Media is
often called "the public educator."
"Whatever you learn of sortilege, calculation, rites
and diagnosis, be clever and learn so as to know it.
If your skill and cleverness of method have not been
perfected by practice, you will not produce medicine, but poison. "
On Saturday, February 18.1978, Murdock's Post told
us that the man there, looking like Dr. John the Nite
Tripper, wearing the Gre Gre hat. was none other than
the archbishop Pangratos of the Greek Orthodox Holy
Sepulchre Church of Graecia Magnesicily. He had empowered an ex-hijacker, thrice divorced, father of three
into the role of Bishop. The newly ordained server of the
Protestant Lord plans to set up ecclesiastical shop in a
castle on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. For the annual dues of $2,000, you too can kiss the Bishop's
$45,000 cognac colored ring at will. Bishops are the conical figures that move on the diagonal either on the black
or in the red. The typographer, upon dropping the lead
is liable to hot line god into dog or place the angle where
the angel should be in terms of linear stimuli pertaining to
the pinhead.

III.
JUST HOW DEEP ARE THE ROOTS
OF PLURALISM OR IS
SECULARISM REFLEXIVE?
When Galileo let his balls roll down an inclined plane
at his own chosen speed, the light which dawned upon

natural philosophers was that our reason can understand

what it creates according to its own design, i.e. that one
must compel nature to answer one's questions. However, what forces evoke responses concerning the issues
which have been stricken from the minds of the masses?
Sixteen centuries of the dark ages were initiated by a spiritual movement. When Galileo turned his tube towards
the heavens and proved that Earth was not the center of
the Universe, the Church's resistance was akin to the
Westerner's revulsion upon encountering the Eastern
refutation of ego. America, emanating from the Reformation-hence the awareness of the political potential of
theocratic institutions-was founded upon the separation
of church and state as well as the freedom of religion.
Christianity. essentially a patriarchal cult, was founded
upon the separation of man from the divine.

IV.
ROUND ONE: THE MEN
IN RED ROBES FROM THE EAST
MEET THE PINSTRIPED
GLADIATORS FROM THE WEST
1) MISPLACED CONCRETENESS

The view from the Lhasa Cement Factory means that

Tibet, roof of the world, which for centuries embodied
the globe's vague musings about wonderment, no longer
exists. In an age when atrocities are commonplace, a
nation destroyed remains an exiled culture of mind. The
TImes of the aforementioned. synchronistically auspicious
Saturday, ran an editorial on the predicament of the Tibetan
refugee whose passport states his country of birth as China.
What the Westerner misunderstands about the Tibetan is
that although he may not have seen an electric light bulb
until well on into his adult years, the life world in which he
was bred was one which naturally assumes the paranormal realm of information. Those of us spawned in
cultures which condition away from one's intuitive functions, find this intoxicating if not exotic. The acquisition
of supra-normal powers is to the Tibetan, part of a process
of maintaining certain commitments for the purpose of
'liberating all sentient beings from sorrow.' Given the
major power's delicate dealings with the capricious Peking
regime, if you're a Tibetan and happen to be speaking at
the United Nations, you are in snow, the consistency of
which is liable to be unpredictable.
2) HAVEN'T YOU SEEN THE SAUCERS?

If you happen to be the leader of one of the four sects

of Tibetan Buddhism and are being viewed as something
other than an anthropological curiosity, you're used to
thin ice. That same Saturday, the United Nations held a
conference on "Today's Chaos, The Spiritual and Psychic
Answer." Speakers were Howard Kip Parker, producer
of the Psychic Film Festival, Gene Kieffer, Director of the
Kundalini Research Institute, and His Holiness Sakya
Trizin, Patriarch of the Sakya Order of Tibetan Buddhism.
That we are currently becoming aware of our ability to
communicate with dimensions which defy corporal contentions means only that. The metal extra connection is
not necessarily concurrent with ethical refinements. If one
were to view the world in a manner which was not domiPURSUIT Summer 1979

98

nated by linear dogma nor by star-trek, Leary-eyed terminology, one might upon having witnessed such phenomena
as The Son of Sam or the rise of the Third Reich, and
conclude that psychic forces are unamenable to human
control.
The first speaker, a shaman who entertains the natives
with magic pictures, foresees an explosion of epiphanies
in the wake of the Star Wars/ Close Encounter fever. The
psi virus, presently creating landing platforms for extraterrestrials in the minds of many, may very well be creating
receptivity for expansive encounters with inner space.
Mr. Parker asserts that the Psi film is going to replace the
Western. Via manipulating aspects of perception, media
can directly engage the psychic structure of the viewer.
According to Parker one could, with appropriate audio
visual stimuli, accelerate the growth of a Third World
country to self-sufficiency within one generation. If the
ranks of the star-spangled, technocratic godhead possessed
sufficient societal dedication, we could 'eliminate hunger
and create immortality.' In citing the example of a proposal to institute T.M. into the New Jersey public schooi
system, which was blocked by the Catholic Church on
the basis of maintaining the division of church and state,
Mr. Parker advocates appropriating Eastern wisdoms as
technology rather than as religion.

The present stage of psychic research is still esoteric,

cultish, and has yet to catch up to the banalities of the
witch doctor. Parker's vision is to create the proper context with which to inject the nuances of inner space into
the foreground of contemporary consciousness via the
Media's manufacture of a need for this category of stimulus.
3) DOES T. M. MAKE ONE LOVE ONE'S NEIGHBOR
ANYMORE?

Kundalini is neither in the dictionary nor the encyclopedia. It is, according to Mr. Kieffer of the Research Institute, one of the most jealously guarded secrets of mankind
and possibly the Unified Field Theory.
The issue is illumination, and Kieffer's position is to
remove the matter from the domain of spirituality, the
aesthetics of which abhors serenity's disruption by debate,
into the realm of science and to prove the biological aspects
of Enlightenment via examining the blood, spinal fluid
and nerve structure of various subjects. In 1970, Kieffer
read the autobiography of Gopi Krishna which documented
his experience of the awakening of Kundalini, the serpentine energy sleeping at the base of every human being's
spine. Krishna, living in Kashmir, having failed his college
entrance examinations at the age of 17, began a daily
mental exercise of concentration. Seventeen years later,
at the age of 34, Krishna, a minor government clerk,
experienced what is described as 'illumination' in various
ancient scriptures of Egypt as well as India. "Suddenly
with a roar like that of a waterfall, I felt a stream of liqUid
light entering my brain through the spinal cord ... the
illumination grew brighter and brighter and I experienced
a rocking sensation and then felt myself slipping out of
my body entirely enveloped in a halo of light. I felt the
point of consciousness that was my self growing wider
surrounded by waves of Iight. .. I was now all consciousness without any outline .... " etc., etc., etc. The metabolic
entertainment was not just another roadside attraction,
for Krishna began to experience all of the altered range of
PURSUIT Summer 1979

consciousness and activity described in obscure manuals

on mysticism. He began to write cognitively in nine languages, three of which he knew prior to his awakening.
He became clairvoyant, etc., etc., etc. Kieffer responded
to Krishna's appeal, which was to bring his experience to
a wider audience, to put the ancient phenomena on the
contemporary map, and to focus some technological
investigation upon the area. Now at the age of 76, six
books and seven years later, Mr. Krishna is about to begin
his public career with a visit to the States wherein he will
confer with various scientists. What happens if the faith
of 90 million Fundamentalists doesn't fit the facts? The
wobble of earth as it traverses through space, and the
warp of mind as it wobbles through time, conSistently
reveal that anger, lust and passions keep the wheel of
life rolling. Hence it might take something just this side of
mass lobotomy to change human nature. According to
Kieffer, "the more we come up against the impenetrable
enigmas of psychic phenomena, the more we fractionate
our personalities." There are infinite numbers of separate
realities. "There is no single underlying truth to inert meditation. Practitioners of transcendental meditation reach
whatever level it is that they want to reach." A student of
magic for years, Kieffer stated, "I don't know a single
magician who doesn't live in fear of the forces with which
he tampers."
4) WHITE LIGHT GOING DOWN THROUGH MY BRAIN
WHITE LIGHT'S GONNA DRIVE ME INSANE
OR IS IT TRUE THAT PROFESSOR EINSTEIN SLEPT
WITH HPB'S SECRET DOCTRINE ON HIS N1TE TABLE?

Posit the hierarchy of Being between: turkeys who are

hopeless for they won't take their head out of the bush,
chickens who ruthlessly peck and claw at materialistic
kernels, and those who woke up to the fact that there isn't
anything that can't be done to a turkey which in all probability will be done to higher forms of life. In that sense we
stand on the brink of creating spineless, succulent, white
meat winners, ignorant of their identity yet eager to perform. Kieffer's vision is grim, for it speaks of the internal
divisions within the United Nations as well as the prospect
of fifty nations possessing nuclear armaments. Those
conSidering the regard of extra-terrestrials toward the
child Earth have only to peruse the modern world's treatment of technically unsophisticated minorities such as the
American Indian. Suppose Kundalini is the Unified Field
Theory which underlies electromagnetism and gravity.
Consider the evolutionary chain of life which stretches
from microscopic invisibilities on out to intelligent elements which are unpositable to the human mind. Although
the intellect is not the channel through which to tune into
para-programming. it is certainly the means by which to
subject the controversies to critical analysis. Since there is
a fundamental disagreement as to the actual existence of
this channel through which the evolutionary goal of genus
man is instrumented, Kieffer suggests the comparative
unfolding of metaphorical allusions veiled within ancient
scriptures of mystery traditions.
Inscribed upon a temple within the delta region of Egypt,
"I am all that was, and is, and is to be. No mortal hath
lifted my veil. And the fruit that I bore is Helios," is attributed to the goddess Isis, sister and wife of the god OSiris,
whose yearly death and resurrection personified the self-

99

renewing potential of nature. Bypassing for the purposes

of brevity the yearly innundation of the Nile which vivifies
the parched valley, and skimming over to Greece, Helios
was the sun god depicted as driving his chariot across the
sky from east to west, daily. Within the lineage of Tibetan
Buddhism, Nagarjuna and Asanga are considered the
two great chariots, emanating from Maitreya, the Buddha
of the Future and Manjushri, the Lord of Wisdom, holders
of the profound and extensive teachings. Vairocana is the
Sun Buddha who "expels darkness and illuminates the
world of men." One cannot realize Vairocana via the
limitations of space and time, but as magic. The miracles
will disappear when their cause, commitments to the
teachings, vanish.
Enter Sakya Trizin, born in Tibet in 1945, considered
an incarnation of Manjushri, training began at age 5, enthroned as Head of Sakya order at age 8, speaks fluent
English.
Evolution is not haphazard but extremely methodical
and gradual. Rather than start with metaphysical assumptions about the ultimate nature of reality, the Buddhist
begins with a basic mindfulness regarding methods of
procedure and understanding.
5) LIKE PUFFED RICE, THERE'S NOTHING THERE
AND YET IT'S EVERYTHING.

According to the Kundalini Research Institute, Enlightenment is a physiological event. According to Sakya Trizin,
the causes for Enlightenment must be created. When the
historical Buddha was questioned as to whether he had
taught everything which he obtained via his experience
beneath the Bodhi tree, he held forth a blade of grass
proclaiming that as all that was necessary. "Buddha"
means one who woke up. The effects of the attainment
of Buddhahood in this lifetime subsume all of the special
effects attributed to paranormal phenomena with the exception that these 'gifts' were acquired via arduous training
in renunciation and development of proper view, as well
as a quality of compassion which knows no discrimination.
The floor opened up and questions began to trickle.
The Lama excused himself stating that we wouldn't interfere with his concentration, and prepared himself to give
a Long Life Empowerment. As he climbed up upon the
throne positioned within traditional Tibetan ritual arrangements, the moderator watched as the Lama began his preliminary motions and commented, "And I hope his doesn't
interfere with ours!" The dialogue flew but the fascinating
part was how the beginning of the ritual wove in and out like
a haunting tenor sax, wailing in the distance at a pitch so
high that only gods could hear it. The talking ceased and the
"wang" formally began. The Long Life Wang is a consecration of the Body, Speech and Mind, removing the moral
and mental defilements from the participant, enabling
him to pursue a long fruitful life . The benefits of this ceremony are dedicated to the welfare of all living creatures.
Participants are requested to visualize light issuing forth
from the Lama's heart, shining upon the world. Yes,
folks, it did happen there. A Tantric ritual was held at the
U.N., structured to keep your internal Timex ticking in
tune forever. The Buddha of Limitless Life, Amitayus, is
said to have appeared, radiant, in the form of an ancient
Indian Prince. At the conclusion, participants could approach the Lama to receive special blessings.

6) I SAID MISTER, MY PROSPECTS ARE GOOD.

HE SAID SISTER, THAT'S UNDERSTOOD.
I GOT NO CAR AND IT'S BREAKING MY HEART,
BUT I FOUND A DRIVER AND THA T'S A START.
Wading Through The Opening Of
The Wisdom Eye

"1 asked him if he wasn't playing the qUintessential Clint

Eastwood alone ..... " He said "You have to shut out doubt.
You have to will your way through. You have to know
how you feel about things and where you stand on this
planet." (Eastwood talking to Jean Vallely in Esquire,
3114178)
For obvious political reasons, we know very little about
the Tibetan culture that was destroyed. The following
Saturday's Times, 2/25/78, told us that the Chinese
People's Political and Consultative Conference convened
for the first time since 1964 in an effort to rally groups
alienated by the Cultural Revolution. Present was the
Panchen Lama, who had not been heard from since 1965.
What appears to be a conciliatory gesture towards the
Tibetans is merely more agit prop structured towards
maintaining social order and regaining popular confidence.
As was stated, the modern matrix consists of psychoanalysis, media and the collaboration of industrial and governmental forces for the purposes of keeping the people's
blinders on. Is stating within the Spielberg idiom, "We
Are Not Alone," very different from plastering across the
dark highway, in Tibetan, "We Are Not Separate" in this
predicament of embodiment? "The disease is not transmitted by the men, Mr. Spock. It is caused by the area of
space which we are in." Far from stating that we are all
one, for while Ms. Bryant is fuming over the complimentary
magnum of K-Y, and some other force is looking to hang
niggers from Louisiana, and others are wondering how
Salvation Army People regenerate themselves, the Post
of 3/3 told of the "Baby Born Without A Mother." If the
story is indeed true, then the 14-month-old baby boy clone
of the millionaire will mature into a carbon copy with
identical fingerprints. Mail early and start to plan the tea
party. King Tut can sit to the left of Adolph, and Elvis can
sit to the left of Chaplain, but dear, dear, his body seems
to be missing! Corporations have the right to own Iifeforms created in their laboratories. Moralizing upon the
issue, a Sloan Kettering scientist cited, "Human beings
don't have the wisdom to be able to control genetics.
Cloning should be stopped, Violently if necessary." According to Kieffer, of the Kundalini Research Institute, "The
intellect can recombine DNA and subatomic particles, it
cannot recombine the hidden forces of nature which
control us." By the time a little clairvoyance dawns upon
a whole lot of us, we may just grasp the reason for secrets
and the historic consistency to the persecution of Buddhists.
In the meantime, "Go, monks, and wander forth for the
gain of the many, for the welfare of the many, in compassion for the world, for the good, for the gain, for the wellbeing of gods and men. Proclaim, monks, the Teaching
glorious, preach for a life of holiness, perfect and pure,"
sounds a bit more embracing than that Pearls-before-Swine
stuff. To the Buddhist, hell is a heuristic realm of experience to be matriculated out of, whereas the Christian,
that man of wealth and taste who's been around for a long,
long time, just throws the key away. ~
PURSUIT Summer 1979

100

NEODINOSAURS

by Ivan T. Sanderson
Reprinted from More "Things", Pyramid Publications, Inc .. New
York, New York. Copyright 1969 by luan T. Sanderson, with
the kind permission of Sabina Warren Sanderson.

The entire first chapter from More "Things" is being

reprinted here in its entirety. Since the book has
been out of print for many years, we hope many of
our readers who have never seen this 'article' on
Dinosaurs will enjoy it.

has been a very curious going-on in Africa for

THERE
more than a century that needs a good airing. The
mere thought of it is an abomination to scientists but it is
a matter that never fails to excite our imagination. It revolves around the question-probably for the most part
born of wishful thinking-that so many of us asked in our
youth; namely, could there be a few dinosaurs still living
in some remoter corners of the earth? But first, two expressions of caution.
One is that there actually is not and never has been
such a thing as a dinosaur, per se, the term being a more
general one like "predaceous beasts" than, say "hoofed
mammals'.'. It means literally "terrible reptiles" and was
initially coined to cover all reptiles discovered as fossils,
and at one time it came to include even the larger extinct
amphibians and related comparatively tiny creatures only
two feet long. 2 There never was any group of animals
officially, properly. and scientifically deSignated that of
the Dinosauria, although later the term tended to be confined to members of three large groups of terrestrial reptiles
that are thought to have become totally extinct some
seventy-five million years ago. These are now known as
the sub-orders Theropoda, Sauropoda, and Ornithopoda.
Lately. however, the term has once again swelled to include just about all extinct reptiles and the larger amphibians. 3
My second word of caution regards the concept of
modern-day Africa. Just because it has been so much in
the news for the past two decades, has been fought over,
and is now allegedly criss-crossed by roads, it does not
mean that it is any "lighter" than a century ago. In fact,
with the advent of the airplane it has reverted to being
the truly dark continent in many respects. Its vast jungles
and swamplands have been by-passed in all the modern
hubbub, and thousands of locations that were fairly well
known fifty years ago have now been Virtually lost. The
mere size of the place is quite beyond comprehension to
those who have not visited it,4 so it is quite useless to suggest
that there is not room in it for all manner of things as yet
unknown.
There is really nothing but negative evidence to support
the statement that dinosaurs are extinct. while, astonishing
as it may seem, there are apparently quite a few people
who actually believe that some still do exist. Moreover,
the evidence they present, is positive, even though they
cannot deny that it is purely circumstantial. Much of it
may probably and quite justfiably be disposed of as wishful thinking, as examples of mistaken identity, scientific
over-enthusiasm, native stupidity or even bad liquor; but
PURSUIT Summer 1979

there are some things like the tuatara, a two-foot Iizardshaped creature from New Zealand, and some millions of
crocodiles which are just as real as the elephants in our
zoos and the cattle in our fields. but which are as old as
the oldest dinosaurs. All the facts. moreover, are on record,
so let us examine them, beginning with what will probably
be regarded as the lunatic fringe.
A well-known South African big-game hunter, delighting in the name of Mr. F. Gobler, returned from a trip to
Angola and announced to the Capetown newspaper, the
Cape Argus, 5 that there was an animal of large dimensions. the description of which could only fit a dinosaur.
dwelling in the Djilolo Swamps, and well known to the
natives as the "chipekwe". He stated: "lts weight would
be about four tons and it attacks rhino, hippo and elephants. Hunters have heard a chipekwe-at nightdevouring a dead rhino, crushing the bones and tearing
out huge lumps of meat. It has the head and tail of a lizard.
A German scientist has photographed it. I went to the
swamps in search of it. but the natives told me it was extremely rare, and I could not locate the monster. Nevertheless, I am convinced the chipekwe does exist. Here
is the photograph."
This, of course, produced a terrific outburst in the
editorial and correspondence columns of the paper. but
the astonishing thing is that the majority of the experts,
both scientific and sporting, and all with much local knowledge, agreed that it might exist. Their reasons will become
abundantly clear later.
I doubt if any of us would believe such a tale, even if
related in all solemnity by the most renowned explorer.
Yet a well-known big-game hunter named Maj. H. C.
Maydon, with over a decade of experience chasing animals
in Africa, has written of this and a number of similar statements: "Do I believe them? Of course; why not? I add
fifty percent for native exaggeration, but I believe there is
more than 'something' in them. I met a man. an old
hunter-prospector, once in liVingstone. Rhodesia, who
swore that he had seen a water monster in Lake Mweru
and had studied its tracks. Why has no one yet seen these
beasts in the flesh for certain or brought one to bag? Because they are forest or swamp dwellers. How many
people have seen a bongo or a giant forest hog or a yellowbacked duiker. and yet they are not excessively rare. "6
The greatest animal dealer of all time, Carl Hagenbeck,
not only believed in such reports but actually invested a
very considerable sum in an expedition which he sent to
Africa under his best professional collector to search for
the creature. A hard-boiled businessman with many years'
experience in buying and selling animals simply does not
do such a thing unless he has very real grounds for expecting concrete returns on his money. Hagenbeck had
such grounds, which he states in his own words as follows:
"I received reports from two quite distinct sources of the
existence of an immense and wholly unknown animal
said to inhabit the interior of Rhodesia. Almost identical
stories reached me, first, through an English gentleman
who had been shooting big game in Central Africa. The
two reports were thus quite independent of each other.
The natives. it seemed, had told both my informants that
in the depths of the great swamps there dwelt a huge
monster. half elephant, half dragon. This however, is not
the only evidence for the existence of the animal. It is
now several decades since Menges, who is. of course,

101

perfectly reliable, heard a precisely similar story from the

Negroes; and still more remarkable, on the walls of certain
caverns in Central Africa there are to be found actual
drawings of this strange creature. From what I have heard
of the animal, it seems to me that it can only be some kind
of dinosaur, seemingly akin to the brontosaurus ... 7. 8
Now it is easy enough to scoff at these tales and even
to pity the sporting major and the poor gullible animaldealer. It is quite permissible to view such reports with a
healthy skepticism and it is assuredly prudent to do so.
Nonetheless, to let the matter rest there would be utterly
unscientific. The very basis of science is a healthy skepticism-one, moreover, that should question the skeptic
who denies the possibility of anything just as readily as it
should question the benighted traveler who dares affirm it.
The borderland of zoology is very extensive; the number of animals still to be discovered on this small planet is
much greater than is popularly realized or science is prepared to advertise. 9 Nor are all of these microscopic worms
or tiny, obscure tropical beetles. There is the famous case
of the okapi, an animal as large as a horse that was only
a rumor until 1900 but is now well known. The number
of entirely new types of animals that are discovered every
year is amazing. And this brings us to the next set of facts
which anybody with a truly unbiased mind should contemplate.
A notion has somehow gained popular credence that
the surface of the earth is now fully explored and for the
most part well-known and even mapped. There was never
a greater misconception. The percentage of the land surface of the earth that is actually inhabited-that is to say,
lived upon, enclosed, farmed or regularly traversed-is
quite limited. Even if the territory that is penetrated only
for hunting or the gathering of food crops be added, vast
areas still remain completely unused. \0
There are such areas in every continent, areas that for
years are never even entered by man. Nor are these only
the hot deserts of the torrid regions or the cold deserts of
the poles. I have visited a house in New Jersey behind
which the woods extend in one direction, unbroken by so
much as a path, for twenty-one miles.
In parts of the tropics there are areas of quite staggering immensity which no man has as yet been able to
penetrate. Whole mountain ranges in Australia have never
even been seen from the ground; large parts of the northern
Himalayas are as yet unvisited; regions of New Guinea
have never been reached, and considerable portions of
the Amazon valley are quite unknown. The Addar swamps
in Central Africa cover 1800 square miles, those of the
Bahr el Ghazal several thousands, and parts of them cannot be traversed. Just because a map is covered with
names does not mean that the country is known. Aerial
surveys made with modern photographic techniques only
add to this popular misconception, for many of the physical features are recorded in some detail then rapidly find
their way into our atlases. They are given names and fill
up the space. but at the same time the country remains
absolutely untouched.
The notion, therefore, that some beast could not exist
because of its size or because somebody would sooner or
later haveseen it, is really quite absurd. There might easily
be creatures as big as elephants living in some profuSion,
say, in the back of the Guyanas, which are now only a few
hours' flight in a commercial plane from Miami. Such

animals might have been well known to several thousand

people for hundreds of years, but their presence would
still be unsuspected by us, for few of the Amerindianswho from aerial surveys are known to exist in that areahave ever come out or even been seen by anyone from
outside.
Another fact that is often not sufficiently appreciated
even by experts is the extraordinary selectiVity displayed
by many animals in chOOSing their places of habitat.
Larger animals especially tend to stay within a limited
area that is often very distinctive as far as vegetation and
other environmental conditions are concerned. Nomadic
animals often travel only from one patch of some particular kind of forest to another of the same, avoiding all
other kinds as they would a forest fire. Hippopotamuses
will abound in certain stretches of a river and never be
seen in others.
This trait often accounts for the supposed rarity of
many animals, when in point of fact-apart from species
that are actually on the road to extinction-there is probably no such thing as a rare animal. It is merely a question
of finding where it lives and how it lives, and in that place
it will prove to be quite common. Any creature living in
a tropical swamp surrounded by dry jungles would always
stay there and, if that swamp could not be penetrated by
man, might never be seen. In such a swamp of two thousand square miles' extent, many very large beasts could
lurk.
The possibilities become even greater if the animals in
question be semi-aquatic; it is interesting to note in this
connection that all the accounts of as-yet-unidentifiedbeasts which sound like descriptions of dinosaurs are of
swamp creatures that retreat into the water when alarmed.
The vastness of Africa is a byword and can be attested
to by any who have flown over it, but to be really
appreciated it has to be seen from the ground. Also, it is
only on the ground that one comes to understand the true
nature of the tropical forests and swamplands. A companion and lance spent a full five minutes peering into a
small patch of bushes trying to see an animal apparently
about as bulky as the two of us put together, that we could
actually hear breathing. We never did see it, even when
it took fright and left, making about as much noise as a
light tank! liOn another occasion I was in a canoe among
reeds in Africa and. after looking up at the sun ahead to
take my bearings, bent down to pick up a cigarette. When
I looked up again there was a full-grown bull elephant
almost on top of me. As I watched, quivering with fright,
it sank down behind the. reeds, and although I immediately
stood up in the canoe so that I could almost see over the
swamp, I never even heard the huge beast again, nor
did I see so much as a single reed move. And this was
only a mile from a native village of two thousand souls, in
an area where elephants had not. as far as I could learn,
been seen within living memory. 12
Small wonder, then, that residents of Africa, and especially those who have hunted big game in more distant
parts, do not readily scoff at these tales which provoke us
to so much laughter-tales such as that brought out of the
Congo by a certain Monsieur Lepage in 1920. 13
This man returned from a hunting trip and announced
that he had come upon an extraordinary animal of great
size in a swamp. It had charged him, making a snorting
noise, and he had fired wildly; but seeing that it did not
PURSUIT Summer 1979

102

halt, he had retreated precipitately. When the monster

abandoned the chase he turned and examined it through
a pair of binoculars for a considerable period of time. He
stated that it was eight meters-about twenty-six feet-long,
had a long painted snout, a short horn above the nostrils,
and a scaly hump on its shoulders. The forefeet appeared
to be solid like those of a horse, but the hindfeet were
separated into digits.
The most astonishing thing about these reports, however, is not so much their prevalence as the widespread
points of their origin. Here again our modern atlases are
very misleading because the practice-born quite properly
of necessity-of squeezing the whole of Africa into one
page gives the impression that the Cameroons are not
really very far from the Upper Nile. This distance is actually
1600 miles, and the territory in between is a vast land of
forests, swamps, and savannahs. The natives on one side
have no connection whatsoever with those on the other,
and yet very similar stories are prevalent at both extremes.
These native tales are heard throughout the equatorial
rain-forest belt from Gambia in the west to the Nile in the
east, and south to Angola and Rhodesia. Carl Hagenbeck's
collectors picked them up in Liberia, and the leader of a
German expedition to the Cameroons in 1913 made a
very interesting report which has never been published in
full, but which has been quoted by several others. In Widely
separated areas, he collected descriptions of an alleged
beast named the "Mokele-mbembe" from experienced
native guides who could not possibly have known each
other. His description states:
"The animal is said to be of a brownish-gray color with
a smooth skin, its size approximating that of an elephant;
at least that of a hippopotamus. It is said to have a long
and very flexible neck and only one tooth but a very long
one; some say it is a horn. A few spoke about a long muscular tail like that of an alligator. Canoes coming near it
are said to be doomed; the animal is said to attack the
vessels at once and to kill the crew, but without eating the
bodies. The creature is said to live in the caves that have
been washed out by the river in the clay of its shores at
sharp bends. It is said to climb the shore even at daytime
in search of food; its diet is said to be entirely vegetable.
This feature disagrees with a possible explanation as a myth.
The preferred plant was shown to me; it is a kind of Iiana
with large white blossoms, with a milky sap and applelike
fruits. At the Ssombo River I was shown a path said to
have been made by this animal in order to get at its food.
The path was fresh and there were plants of the described
type near by. But since there were too many tracks of elephants, hippos, and other large mammals. it was impossible to make out a particular spoor with any amount of
certainty. "14
This brings up the whole question of native tales, over
which there is perhaps more acrimonious debate than
over any other subject. Opinions appear to be about
equally divided among those who have lived in Africa,
but both parties tend to overlook certain facts. Because of
his animistic beliefs, the African lives in a world peopled
by a host of spirits which are nonetheless just as real to
him as animals are to us, and he may describe these with
great clarity of expression. However, we must at the same
time consider the fact of the African's customary and remarkable knowledge of natural history; usually, he not
only has a name for all the animals in his country but also
PURSUIT Summer 1979

knows their habits and their slightest variations in great

detail.
The African can, however, develop a maddening habit
of exaggeration or even outright fabrication if he desires to please an inquiring foreigner. Against this, in turn,
must be placed his very widespread reluctance to publicize anything in his territory that might conceivably be of
value to the outside lest-as he has learned from unhappy
experience-a new tax immediately be clapped upon it.
If you do get a tribal African's confidence and he starts to
talk about animals, as opposed to the spirit creatures of
his country, it is well worth while to listen intently, for it
must not be forgotten that certain Africans always contended that mosquitoes had something to do with malaria,
a fact we proved only quite recently. Similarly. others
talked about the okapi for a very long time before it was
actually shot by a white man. But sometimes the African's
patience with us and our disbelief of things he knows well
becomes exhausted, and even he resorts to the writing of'
official minutes.
I must interject here a brief account of a personal experience that occurred in 1932 when I was with the wellknown explorer and animal collector, W. M. (Gerald)
Russell. and two young Africans employed by us, Bensum
Onun Edet and Bassi Aga of the Anyang people. We had
paddled all day up a remarkable river named the Mainyu
which ran north, straight as a man-made canal, from a
large circular pool in which another small river emptied.
and from which the mighty Cross River emerged on its
way south between the Cameroons and Nigeria to the
Atlantic at Calabar. The Mainyu itself was over a hundred
miles long. arising in the Assumbo Mountains to the north.
ending in this straight run, then cutting a slightly tortuous
gorge through a ridge of limestone four-hundred-feet high
that lay athwart its entrance to the Mamfe Pool. All the
way it ran through the uninhabited, (by any humans) high,
deciduous, Equatorial rain-forest, between smooth rock
shelves backed by strands of white sand with lush short
herbage. behind which the towering forest rose like a
cathedral wall. its foliage overhanging the sandy beach.
From the giant trees of this forest wall hung innumerable
creepers (locally called Iianas) both enormous and fine as
cotton threads. Many bore exotic flowers and enormous,
globular green fruits, looking like footballs, and just as
tough.
On returning downstream to the "Mamfe Pool from a
day of very hard paddling upstream on a collecting trip,
we just glided along, paddling only now and then to maintain way. Sundown was approaching as we entered the
gorge. Gerald Russell was in the lead canoe with Bassi;
I followed about a hundred feet behind with Bensun.
There were deepening shadows in the gorge and all along
its towering vertical walls at water-level were the arched
tops of huge caves. We had previously penetrated some
of these at the pool-end of the gorge to collect a certain
kind of very rare frog, but we had never before passed
these huge ones farther upstream.
When we were about in the middle of the mile-anda-half-long winding gorge, the most terrible noise I have
heard. short of an on-coming earthquake or the explosion
of an aerial-torpedo at close range, suddenly burst from
one of the big caves to my right. Ben, who was sitting upfront in our little canoe with a "moving" paddle, immediately dropped backward into the canoe. Bassi in the lead

103

canoe did likewise, but Gerald tried to about-face in the

strong swirling current, putting himself broadside to the
current. I started to paddle like mad but was swept close
to the entrance of the cave from which the noise had
come. Thus, both Gerald and I were opposite its mouth;
just then came another gargantuan gurgling roar and
something enormous rose out of the water, turned it to
sherry-colored foam and then, again roaring, plunged
below. This "thing" was shiny black and was the head of
something, shaped like a seal but flattened from above to
below. It was about the size of a full-grown hippopotamus-this head, I mean.
We exited from the gorge at a speed that would have
done credit to the Harvard Eight and it was not until we
entered the pool that Bassi and Ben came-to. What we
wanted to know, what was this monster? Neither could
enlighten us as they were not river people. However, both
finally yelled "M'kuoo-m'bemboo", and grabbed their
paddles. When we reached the little beach at he far side
of the pool where we kept our canoes, we were met by
the rest of our gang, some twenty-strong and all local
men. They were very shaken and solicitous of our safety.
All the river people among them confirmed Bassi and
Ben's diagnosis. These animals lived there all the time,
they told us, and that is why there were no crocodiles or
hippos in the Mainyu. (There were hundreds of both in
the pool, the other river, and the Cross River.) But, they
went on, "M'koo" does not eat flesh but only the big Iiana
fruits and the juicy herbage by the river.
Later we moved across that river permanently and
camped nearby. We found huge pathways through the
herbage from the river and masses of the great, tough,
green "footballs" smashed up, and some with pieces, a
foot wide, bitten out of them just as we bite a piece out of
an apple. But now back to official reports.
The now famous report of the late King Lewanika, of
the Barotse tribe, is of this nature. The king, who took
great interest in the fauna of his country, constantly heard
of a large reptile that lived in the great swamps. He had
passed this information on, but, since nobody believed it,
he gave strict orders that the next time any of his people
saw the animal they were to tell him immediately. After
some time three men reported, saying that they had come
across the beast at the edge of a marsh, that it had a long
neck and small, snakelike head, and that it had retreated
into the swamp on its belly. King Lewanika immediately
visited the spot and states in his official minutes that it had
left a track in the reeds "as large as a full-sized wagon
would make were its wheels removed."
Other native evidence comes from widely separated
sources. An experiences white hunter named Stephens,
who was also in charge of a long section of the telegraph
line which runs along the banks of the Upper Nile, has
given a great deal of information about a large. swampdwelling reptile known to a number of tribes as the "Lau."15
The natives described the animal to Stephens in great detail and more than one of them affirmed that they had
been present at the killing of a "Lau." They variously
described it as being between forty and a hundred feet
long, but concurred in stating that the body was only
about as big as a donkey; that it was dark yellow in color,
and that it had a vicious, snakelike head, with large tentacles or wiry hairs with which it reached out to seize its
prey. Later, a Belgian administrator from the Congo

asserted that he had seen a "lau" several times in a swamp

and had shot at it.
The most convincing native account, however, comes
from Northern Rhodesia, and is of the animal called the
"Chipekwe." An Englishman who spent eighteen years
on Lake Bangweulu in that country has given an account
of the slaying of one, as described by the local chief, who
had it from his grandfather. 16 Apparently the tribesmen
killed the creature with hippo spears. It had a smooth,
hairless, dark body, and the head was adorned with a
single white ivory horn. The story was firmly rooted in
local tradition; the Englishman believed in the existence
of the animal, for he reports that a retired local administrator had heard some very large animal splashing in a
lake in the nighttime and had examined large unknown
spoor on the bank the next morning.
The mention of a single ivory horn brings us to a whole
set of most interesting facts that were assembled from
quite another source. Some years ago during the excavation of the famous Ishtar Gate of Babylon by the German
professor, Robert Koldewey. a number of startlingly realistic bas-reliefs of a dragon like animal with cUriously mixed
features were brought to light. It had a scaled body, long
tail and neck, hindfeet of a bird and forefeet of a lion, and
a strange reptilian head sporting a single straight, upright
horn like that of a rhinoceros, wrinkles under its neck, a
crest like a modern iguana lizard, and a very pronounced,
serpentine tongue. At first this fabulous creature was
classed along with the winged. human-headed bulls and
other fabulous monsters of Babylonian mythology, but
profound researches gradually forced the professor to
quite a different conclusion. 17
The creature had the name of the "Sirrush" and the
priests were said to have held it in a dark cavern in the
temple. It was depicted on the walls of the Ishtar Gate in
great numbers and in association with a large, ox-like
animal which is now known to have been the extinct
aurochs-very definitely a real animal. When analyzed,
allowing for considerable Babylonian artistic license, the
strangely mixed characters of the "Sirrush" appeared to
be much less fabulous than had at first been supposed,
and, despite his solid Teutonic background, Professor
Koldewey became more and more convinced that it was
not a representation of a mythical creature but an attempt
to depict a real animal, an example of which had actually
been kept alive in Babylon in very early days by the priests.
After much searching in the depths of his cautious scientific soul. he even made so bold as to state in print that
this animal was one of the plant-eating, bird-footed dinosaurs, many types of which had by that time been reconstructed from fossil remains. He further pOinted out that
such remains were not to be found anywhere in or near
Mesopotamia and that the "Sirrush" could not be a Babylonian attempt to reconstruct the animal from fossils.
Its characters, as shown in Babylonian art from the earliest
times, had not changed, and they displayed great detail
in scales, horns, wrinkles, the crest and the serpentine
tongue, which, taken altogether, could not alI have been
just thought up after viewing a fossilized skeleton.
On further analysis. the "Sirrush" seems to display
characteristics of the "Chipekwe" of Lake Bangweulu
and of Monsieur Lepage's beast from the Congo. The
single horn on the snout, the scaled hump on the shoulders, the solid forefeet and cloven hindfeet, the long neck
PURSUIT Summer 1979

104

and small serpentine head and even the "tentacles" of the

"Lau" an appear in the "Sirrush." But, much more significant is the little matter of a certain dinosaur of the Theropod or so-called "beast-footed" group known as Cerotosaurus or the "reptile with a horn". This had a single,
upright, white horn on its snout, was probably scaled at
least in part, had rather long kangaroo-like hind legs with
only three toes like a bird. This is rather annoying because
the designation thero-pod means beast or mammal-likefooted, while another of the dinosaurian groups is called
ornitho-pod which means bird-footed and its members
have three, four, or even five toes! The theropods were
carnivorous, and this would coincide with the hippo-eating
proclivities of the "Chipekwe." We have no evidence
from fossils that Ceratosaurus was scaled but there is no
reason why it should not have been; also, if you look at
the head of a large, old iguana in profile you will note just
such features as the "Sirrush" displays, namely, gular or
throat folds of skin, a crest rising to a point on the crown
of the head and then running down the neck and along
the back, a very round prominent eye, a slim lower jaw
with prominent scales, and sooner or later you will see
the forked tongue flick out. Recently, the way in which
the skeletons of many of the dinosaurs have been articulated and set up in museums has been very seriously criticized by a group of palaeontologists. (See bibliography.) 18
They contend that the ancient large reptiles were erected
upon (like mammals). rather than slung between, the
limbs (like lizards). It is possible therefore that dinosaurs
like Ceratosaurus, despite its small front limbs, spent
much time like a browsing kangaroo with its forefeet on
the ground, and since the hands had five little clawed
fingers it would be rather natural that a Babylonian sculptor
should liken them unto a lion.
The only jolt to this theory is that the only one-horned
theropod - this Ceratosaurus - is known only from the
Cretaceous period of North America. However, this does
not mean that it could not have had an ally in Africa,
since there are closely related theropods of other kinds
known from both continents.
The final link in this chain of evidence may well be the
findings of some archaeological digs in Somalia. These
brought to light numerous massive structures of a type
known only from the Mesopotamian region, composed
of baked bricks, some of which were glazed just like those
built into the wall and gate of Ishtar. This is much less
fabulous than it sounds, for there is absolute evidence
that seaborne trade had been carried on by the Sumerians,
before the rise of Babylon, between Mesopotamia and
the east coast of Africa which was called "Me-Iukh-kha"
and was said to be inhabited by Salmuti, meaning "black
men". If a horned, theropod dinosaur existed in Africa at
that time, a captive specimen or specimens might well

have been shipped back to Mesopotamia, where they

would undoubtedly have created quite a stir and become
the exclusive property of the ruling priesthood: in fact,
the "beast in the pit" of the Bible. Their presence as sacred
beasts would prompt the making of very careful portraits
of them on important monuments.
Whether the Babylonian "Sirrush" and the other creatures rumored to have come from Africa exist now, or
ever existed at all, is a matter that can be proved concluSively only by the discovery of either a live specimen or of
fresh bones in association with the remains of men. But if
they do exist, the question that immediately springs to
mind is, could they be dinosaurs? The answer, perhaps
rather surprisingly, is yes.
Neither in its general nor its restricted sense does the
name dinosaur necessarily imply primitiveness of structure, great geological age, or even large size. for there are
many medium, small, and tiny ones. The crocodiles as a
group are just as old and indiVidually much larger than
many dinosaurs, while the tortoises belong to one of the
most primitive of all reptilian stocks. The little lizard-shaped
tuatara which still lives on some islands off New Zealand,
is, in the general sense, a dinosaur and it is much more
primitive and comes from an older stock than those three
groups which we call dinosaurs in the more restricted
sense.
This puts the whole matter in an entirely different light.
If the tortoises. the tuatara, and the crocodiles have managed to survive from the age of reptiles, there is really no
reason why members of the other groups, some much
less primitive and including those that we may choose to
call dinosaurs, should not also have survived. The majority
of the reptiles disappeared at the end of what is called the
Cretaceous period, after which the more active and "clever"
mammals took over. But there is no reason why some
might not have lingered on until today in the vast and
isolated swamps of Africa-the one part of the world that
has remained tropical and comparatively stable since the
Cretaceous period and which was almost entirely unaffected
by the great ice ages and the mountain-building disturbances of intervening times.
It is indeed a very curious business that merits our consideration and, in my opinion, some active investigation.
Can the whole thing be the product of wishful thinking?
Can all these big-game hunters, animal collectors, game
wardens, and princely African writers of official minutes
be pure sensation seekers or under the influence? Did
Professor Koldewey just go daft, and throwaway his high
scientific standing with carefree abandon?
There could be dinosaurs alive today, so let us try to
maintain what should be the true scientific spirit and simply
say that, as yet, there is no positive evidence that they do
still exist.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Sanderson, Ivan T., "There Could Be Dinosaurs". The
.
Saturday ElJening Post. 3 January 1948.
2. Owen. Richard. "Report on British Fossil Reptiles, Part II."'
Report of the British Association for the Advancement of
SCience, Eleventh Meeting, Plymouth. July 1841, pp.
60-204.
3. Colbert, Edwin H., Dinosaurs: Their DiscOlJery and Their
World. New York: E. P. Dutton. 1961: Men and Dino
saurs, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

4. Bartholomew, John. AdlJanced Atlas of Modern Geog

raphy. New York: McGraw-Hili, 1962.
5. Gobler. F., [letter to editor], Cape Argus, July, 1932:
also as F. Grobler. Rhodesia Herald, 15 July 1932.
6. Maydon, Maj. H. C., quoted in Lane, Frank W .. Nature
Parade. Sheridan House, 1954.
7. Hagenbeck, Carl,. Beasts and Men, London. 1909.
8. Ley, Willy, The Lungfish. The Dodo. and the Unicorn,
New York: The Viking Press, 1948.

105
9. Heuvelmans, Bernard. On the Track of Unknown Animals.
London: Rupert Hart-Davis. 1958.
10. See demographic maps published by American Geographical Society.
11. Sanderson. Ivan T., Caribbean Treasure. New York:
The Viking Press. 1939.
12. Sanderson, Ivan T.. Animal Treasure. New York: The
Viking Press. 1937.
13. Lepage. quoted by Lane. Frank W., "Mystery Animals of
Jungle and Forest", National RelJiew (London). July 1937.

14. Von Stein zu Lausnitz. Freiherr. quoted in Ley. Willy.

op. cit.

15. Stephens. Sergeant. quoted by Millais. J. G., Far Away Up

the Nile. London. 1924.
16. James. C. E.. [letter to the editor). London Daily Mail.
% Dec. 1919.
17. Koldewey. Prof. R .. Das IschtarTor in Babylon. Leipzig.
1918.
18. Bakker. Robert T .. DiscolJery. June 1968 [see also New
~rk Times. 2 June 1968).

MORE ON EXTANT DINOSAURS

Cerro Santa Ana. At its top, a patch of tropical rain forest has remained Isolated
in the desert from the end of the Cretaceous.

by Dr. Silvano Lorenzoni

Photographs by the author

the Spring, 1977 issue of this magazine I had exI Nplained

that the survival of actual dinosaurs-or of
I

some other kinds of prehistoric and supposedly "extinct"

living forms-both animal and vegetable-was both possible and likely in the high and isolated plateaux of the
Guayana region south of the Orinoco River, in northern

South America. In particular, I quoted an exceedingly

puzzling eyewitness account to that effect.
Since then this matter has acquired broadened contours, both as a consequence of my readings and of my
conversations with several knowledgeable people interested
in this subject,2 and of my own travels and on-site perusals
and interviews with witnesses.

.. .

To begin with, something more about the Guayanese

plateaux. There is evidence, collected and published by
PURSUIT Summer 1979

106

The Roraima from near Santa Elena de Uair{m. Atop this mountain it has been said that unidentified fossils are extant.

Dr. L. Croizat,3 that the definitive isolation of those plateaux dates from the end of the Cretaceous (60 to 80
million years ago) which is exactly the time when the
dinosaurs-at least as a well-distributed and powerful
group of species-became extinct. That in itself constitutes
an additional prop for the hypothesis that their last descendants could still survive on those isolated heights.
Dr. Croizat, however, leads us one step further when he
expounds a theory whereby the Guayanese plateaux
reached their present configuration in a very quick and
almost catastrophic fashion. I shall attempt to sketch,
very briefly, Croizat's theory:
At the end of the Cretaceous most of South America
was formed by a comparatively low and continuous plateau
of pre-Cambrian sandstone that extended roughly from
the Caribbean to the Argentinian pampas. At that time
the rising of the Andes, all along the western edge of the
continent, changed the situation in two ways:
(a) the primeval plateau was lifted-owing to isostatic
forces set up by the appearance of high rock masses to
the west-and presumably cracked.
(b) new rivers and river basins were created-notably
the Orinoco to the north, the Amazonas to the center and
the Parana to the south. As a consequence large water
masses, channeled along the cracks of the primeval plateau,
caused an unprecedented erosion. The result was the
definitive breaking up of the plateau into two parts: Guyana
in the north, and the Brazilian uplands (the "Mato Grosso")
in the south. Guyana, while smaller in extent, is substantially higher above sea level than the Mato Grosso and of
PURSUIT Summer 1979

a much more broken nature, being the land of the fantastic "tepuyes" or flat-topped mountains.
Incidentally. the cracking mentioned in (a) above should
have caused some localized volcanic phenomena and/or
extrusions of igneous rock. I have personally observed
igneous extrusions on the north side of the Auyantepuy
during my last (April, 1976) expedition to that mountain.
In the event Croizat's theory is correct, the credibility
of the possible survival of purportedly "extinct" species
on those lone heights would be strongly enhanced. I have
been able to collect two further pieces of information:
(a) During a recent trip (September, 1978) to the SaIto
Angel area4 I was informed by the local indians that in the
vicinity certain "unusual size lizards" exist. One may justifiably wonder what they may be.
(b) A report on fossils, supposedly seen atop the Roraima, has been made. 5 No "official" report has ever been
made of fossils in the Guayana area.
Quite apart from the above, Croizat's theory has some
other interesting consequences. In particular, any formations, however small, made up of pre-Cambrian sandstone
which is to be found north or west of the Orinoco, should
OPPOSITE PAGE

Above: Serrania del Moroturo, as seen from the

farm "La Herrereiia (La Apariclon, Portuguese,
Venezuela). An unidentified "water monster" is
reported to inhabit a lake in these mountains.
Below: Pre-Cambrian sandstone formations in the
Galeras de EI Pao. A peculiar saurian (a varanid?)
has been sighted in this area.

107

PURSUIT Summer 1979

108

offer much of a hold to any prehistoric endemism. But,

of course, one never knows. In Colombia, on the other
hand, what appears to be a large pre-Cretaceous residue is the Sierra de la Macarena, scarcely 200 km. southeast of Bogota, which would also be worthy of Fortean
atten tion. 8

.. .

Saito Angel (Auyantepuy). In this area "unusual size

lizards" have been reported.

be interpreted as residues of the "primeval plateau"; as

such, they are worthy of an investigation as to possible
peculiar biological endemisms.
In Venezuela there is at least one such formation, of a
fair size, the so-called Galeras de EI Pao (States of Guarico
and COjedes). This is a system of low hills, about 300 m.
high, about 100 km. long, and 20-30 km. wide, parallel
to and separated from the Venezuelan coastal range (which
is a prolongation of the Andes) by narrow and low swampy
valleys.
Peculiarly enough, it is from these "Galeras" that an
exceptionally large reptile has been reported,6 described
as something resembling a "Komodo dragon" -i.e., what
could presumably be a large varanid. To this day, true
varanids do not officially exist anywhere in South America.
(The closest there is to them is the zoological family Amei
videa: iguana-size carnivorous lizards that are, however,
very far frorri fulfilling the descriptions that are given for
those unknown "dragons."7)
I have personally observed residues of sandstone walls
in the higher parts of the Sierra de Coro (State of Falc6n,
Venezuela). Those, too, are likely to be residues of the
"primeval plateau," probably too small and too broken to
PURSUIT Summer 1979

I shall round off this paper by indicating a few more

locations in Venezuela which, even though they are not
tied in with the theory and phenomenology of the Guayanese plateau, nevertheless may merit Fortean interest in
terms of the possible existence of unusual flora and/or
fauna:
(a) Cerro Santa Ana (peninsula of Paraguana) and
Galeras de EI Baul (State of COjedes). 9 The Cerro Santa
Ana is an isolated height about 900 m. high close to the
middle of the otherwise nearly flat peninsula of Paraguana. This peninsula is the driest part of Venezuelato all intents and purposes a desert-while the summit of
the Santa Ana sustains a genuine tropical rain forest in its
uppermost part (above about 600 m.). This patch of rain
forest, not larger than about 25 sq. km., must have reo
mained ecologically isolated for the last 60 to 80 million
years. I have personally visited this peak on several occasions. During one of my visits there I discovered a peculiar
crustacean. some specimens of which I sent to SITU to
have identified .
The forest atop the Santa Ana (a mountain that appears
to be of volcanic origin) is definitely unlike anything I have
observed in my multiple travels and expeditions, with the
presence of an endemic dwarf palm (known to science
but of no known relationship) and abundance of a large
tree of the Ficus family and creeping ferns-all of them
singularizing features.
Geologically akin to the Santa Ana are the isolated
volcanic hills of EI Baul (Galeras de EI Baul) , in the midst
of the Venezuelan central plains. To the best of my knowledge they are still ecologically, botanically and zoologically unexplored.
(b) Serranla del Moroturo is a wooded mountain range,
about 2000 m. high. It branches off from the Venezuelan
Andes and makes the border between the states of Lara
and Portuguese. In a secluded area of that range there is
a lake, about 1000 m. above sea level, in which is said to
live, for want of a better identification, a "water monster. ,.
The area is not particularly isolated from an ecological
standpoint; it may be that this "water monster" is nothing
other than an anaconda-which in itself would be a peculiar occurrence in an isolated lake at 1000 m. above sea
level. On the other hand, since the pond apparently dries
SITU sent these specimens to Dr. Thomas E. Bowman. Curator.
Crustacea. Department of Invertebrate Zoology. of the Smithsonian
Institution. Here is a summary of his findings: UI have examined the
specimens of Ligia and I believe they are Ligia platycephala (Van Name).
There are some small differences from published descriptions. but I sus
pect these are related to the smaller size of your specimens. I have found
that L. platycephala has already been reported from Cerro Santa Ana
by. A. Vandel, the leading authority on terrestrial isopods. in 1952.
("Etude des isopodes terrestres nkoltes au Venezuela par Ie Dr. G.
Marcuzzi," Memorie del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Verona. vol.
3, pp. 59203). It is generally agreed that L. platycephala and L. simoni
Dollfus from Cumbre de Valencia. Venezuela and Santa Marta. Colom
bia, are sufficiently distinct from other species of Ligia to warrant
recognizing a subgenus, Pogonoligia Jackson, for them.
"Until now we have had' no representatives of L. platycephala in our
collections, so the speciments you have given us are most welcome."

109

.... "

..

Residue of sandstone wall in the Sierra de Coro.

out during severe droughts. there is a chance that it may

be a variety of lungfish. Lungfish are known from the
low-lying grounds of the Venezuelan central plains as
well as from the Amazonian basin (and also from equatorial Africa and Australia), but never from above 1000 m.
above sea level. In the event that the denizen of the Moroturo lagoon was indeed a lungfish, it would have to be of
a new and unknown variety. But need it be a lungfish?

To sum up: I have presented what evidence is known

to me as to the possibility of Fortean findings in the biological field in South America in general and in Venezuela
in particular. While some of this evidence-specifically
that which refers to sightings and second hand reportsmay turn out to be pure hearsay, I think it is highly unlikely that it will a/l prove to be without a basis. I feel quite
certain that a systematic exploration of the areas mentioned would be richly rewarding. Such a systematic
study I have myself slowly begun, even though within the
all-tao-narrow margins of my extremely scarce free time.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. S. Lorenzoni: "Extant dinosaurs: a distinct possibility,"
Vol. 10, No.2, Spring, 1977.
2. In particular, with Dr. Leon Croizat, one of the world's great
est biogeographers and ecologists, now director of the Xerophitic Botanic Gardens at Coro, Venezuela.
3. See: Leon Croizat: Biograffa analftica y sintetica (panbiogeograffa) de las Americas, Biblioteca de la Academia de Ciencias.
Vol. XV, Caracas (1976) (2 tomos).
4. See: Croizat: Pan biogeografIa , op. cit.
5. The Saito Angel, the world's highest waterfall (1000 m.l,
falls from the Auyantepuy. I was informed of this by Dr. Janis
Racemis, now retired from a biology chair of the Universidad
Central de Venezuela. His source was "a Swedish geologist"
Pursuit,

who had climbed the Roraima sometime in the 1960s.

6. The information was given to Dr. Croizat in 1972 by a prospector then living in Caracas.
7. All quotes referring to Venezuelan fauna are taken from:
Eduardo Rohl: Fauna descriptiva de Venezuela (vertebrados) ,
Tipografia Americana, Caracas, 1949.
8. The high plateau of Cochabamba (Bolivia) probably represents with respect to the Mato Grosso the same that the Galeras
de EI Pao or the Sierra de la Macarena, represent with respect
to Guyana. See Croiza!, op. cit.
9. Refer to: Antonio Luis Cardenas C.: Geograf/a f,sica de
Venezuela. Talleres graficos universitarios, Merida (Venezuela).
1965.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

110

EXEGESIS:
UNEXPLAINED DATA RELATED
TO UNITED FLIGHT 389
The radar tape processed by SAGE must indicate a malfunctioning of equipment.
The odd behavior of this equipment must be due to
some problem with the continuously-oscillating time
standard or some time demodulation program computerlinked to this constant electromagnetic pulsing.
It is significant that the crash of Flight 389 seems to
have been caused by the irrational behavior of three experienced commercial pilots who, while engaging in casual
conversation with the control facilities in Chicago about
their ordinary altimeter setting, failed to level off their. aircraft normally, and instead directed it downward, making
a surprise nosedive into Lake Michigan. Previous conversation with the Chicago Approach Control seems to
indicate that the instruments in the plane were working
normally, and that this uncontrollable crash landing was
the result of some inexplicable human error or sudden
equipment failure.
I was standing out looking at the stars one evening last
summer, when a bat flew at my head. It flew back and
forth from my head to the house se.veral times, seemingly
trying to get a bearing on my alien height in comparison
to the familiar dimensions of the building.
Perhaps this bat felt that a measure of my height might
be a measure of my identity.
Like the U.S. Air Force Defense Command, bats use
a "radar" device which bounces signals off physical objects.
It is not any direct impression of the object itself which
reaches the bat, but a variation of its own original ultrasonic probe. Bats use ultrasonic rather than electromagnetic test probes of their vicinity. A bat which had ceased
to remember the original signal which it emitted would
lose directional orientation, due to a lack of any ability to
make an approximate comparison between the original
remembered signal and current ultrasonic signals bounced
back from the object.
Memory malfunction in the bat would manifest as spacial disorientation. It would start flying into objects. It
might even make a nosedive directly down into the obvious blue surface of a lake. thinking that it was flying
upward.
As in measuring a human being against a house to find
the comparative height of the object, the only way to correlate the mental state of the pilots in charge of Flight
389 with the unusual radar tracking of this ill-fated flight
is to compare these two unlike malfunction events in
terms of what they may have in common. It seems to me
that in both cases there has been a significant "memory

by E. Macer-Story
1978 E. Macer-Story

of the most interesting side effects of "ufo" maniO NEfestation

is the false image or "angel" effect on radar
mechanisms. For example, at the time of the mysterious
nosedive taken by United Flight 389 on August 16, 1965,
the U.S. Air Force Air Defense Command radar network
(SAGE) recorded two moving targets in the 389 crash
area.
As a matter of fact, there was only one aircraft in that
area. These two radar tracks recorded by SAGE both
displayed secondary data which does not agree with first
hand information determined by examining the actual
wreckage of the plane.
The central, stabilizing device in a standard radar instrument is a continuously-oscillating time standard, usually
a quartz crystal. An approximation of the distance and
speed of objects registering on the radar screen is obtained
by a process of "time demodulation," during which the
difference between a constant electrical pulse and the
similar pulse reflected by the moving object is measured
in terms of time delay and relative frequency. The demodulation of the frequency gives the speed of the object,
while the measure of the time delay interval provides an
approximate distance of the target from the radar registry.
In analyzing the sudden nosedive of Flight 389, the
radar data which has perplexed investigators involves a
certain Track A039, which ceased recording several
minutes before the crash, and a second Track K047, which
began suddenly several minutes before the crash and
continued for two minutes after the crash, discontinuing
at a point approximately 23 miles due west of where the
wreckage was later discovered. This is a simplified visual
representation of tracks A039 and K047:
Assuming that this is the track of one airplane, since no
other aircraft was in the area, Flight 389 seems to have
disappeared for two minutes, reappeared, crashed. and
yet continued to fly on for several minutes after this crash,
finally vanishing entirely. Jay Gourley, in his book on the
"Great Lakes Triangle" area, states that Flight 389 would
have to have accelerated to well over the speed of sound
in order to make this observation valid.
Clearly, since ordinary wreckage. was found in Lake
Michigan near a place where eyewitnesses saw a fireball
over the water, this hypothetical acceleration is impossible.
A039
K047:

PURSUIT Summer 1979

2-3
MINUTES

K047

CRASH

----1ti

I...

..........,

~~

2 MINUTES

'I

111

malfunction." The radar mechanism forgot how to process the data correctly, and three experienced pilots
forgot for a moment how to fly their plane. Or the equipment in the plane forgot for a crucial moment how to fly
itself automatically.
What sort of phenomenon could cause a memory
malfunction in both a machine and a trained human being,
and/ or two pieces of electronic equipment situated miles
apart geographically? Certainly, this long-distance coincidence is not just a psychological error on the part of
the flight crew. It has to involve a very palpable sort of
mutual phenomenon or the radar equipment would not
have gone haywire at the same time, and scanning the
same area, as an inexplicable nosedive into Lake Michigan.
What sort of physical phenomenon could both throw off
the time standard of the radar mechanism and alter the
consciousness of the flight crew of United Flight 389?
Since the nervous system, like the continuously-oscillating time standard in a radar sensing system, is basically
an electrochemical mechanism, clearly this mutuallyexperienced phenomenon is something which alters the
electromagnetic atmosphere in the area where these
unusual effects are occurring, otherwise the radar and
the mental capacities of the crew would not both be independently affected within the same time/space frame.
This would also be true if the equipment within the
plane and not the sensibilities of the flight crew had been
affected by some unknown phenomenon: in order to
logically link the malfunction of the radar with the crash
itself, it is necessary to postulate some more general electromagnetic change in the crash area, which was being
routinely scanned by the U.S. Air Force Air Defense
Command when the unusual effects were recorded on
the radar tape.
There is only one problem as concerns this supposition about a changed electromagnetic atmosphere in the
area of the crash. The crash and the radar mechanism
were not in the same small geographical area. Therefore
the pilots and/or their equipment and the continuouslyoscillating time standard of the SAGE radar network
were not independently affected within the same time/
space frame.
They were, however, independently affected with
reference to the same unusual event, an inexplicable
plane crash.
Clearly, there must have been something very particular
which both caused the plane to take a nosedive and bolex
up the radar. Suppose, for example, that Flight 389 entered a pocket of altered molecular-electronic density at
the termination of radar track A039.
Once inside this area of altered structural density,
the plane itself would "disappear" to the radar, since the
area surrounding the plane would be an area of matter
which was structurally different from the electronic density
of the surrounding atmosphere, and therefore non-reflective to a conventional electromagnetic radar pulse.
Of course, any accelerated craft which entered such a
pocket of altered molecular density unexpectedly could
not be expected to survive this transition intact. Sup Altered structural density is a quality involving a change in the electronic bond which binds together the basic molecular structure of mailer.
An alteration of basic molecular-electronic density would change the
electromagnetic structure of any large object.

pose that at some point the wreckage of Flight 389 preCipitated out of this area of altered density and into Lake
Michigan. Further suppose that at the beginning of radar
track K047 a craft of an unidentified nature emerged
from this area of altered molecular density and continued
on about its esoteric business, then re-entered this same
continuum of altered molecular density, vanishing to
radar.
The flight data recorder of Flight 389 has never been
recovered. If I were now plotting a science fiction story,
I might now order these speculations in such a way as to
indicate that a craft which was able to navigate using
energies of an electronically "strange" density, and which
also possessed a more sophisticated knowledge of the
"time" continua than we currently do in the U.S.A., had
darted out into the skies over Lake Michigan just long
enough to recover the evidential flight data recorder . . .
before or during the crash descent.
This would account for the unusual acceleration recorded by track K047, if the SAGE mechanism was not
malfunctioning. However, I am not at this moment plotting
a science fiction story. We will never know exactly what
happened to Flight 389. Either the radar device was malfunctioning, or it was not malfunctioning. If it was malfunctioning, it is extremely interesting that the misbehavior
of the continuously-oscillating time standard occurred
within the same half hour as the inexplicable air crash
which it was tracking.
If the SAGE mechanism was not malfunctioning, then
something unusual indeed happened in the vicinity of Flight
389. It is within the realm of real possibility that United
Flight 389 hit a pocket of altered structural density, which
affected not only the relationship of the molecular structure
of the aircraft to its environment, but also the electrochemically regulated perceptual mechanism which they
were consulting. Clearly, the unusual event of the crash
itself had some effect on the time/space perception of the
radar mechanism, most particularly the time perception
of this mechanism, which abruptly dropped one track,
only to begin another track several minutes later, happily
continuing this anomalous second track for several minutes
after the time of the crash as witnessed, only to abruptly
discontinue recording a solid target over twenty miles
from the crash site. indicating the termination of the flight
in an area where no wreckage has been recovered.
If the reader finds the foregoing information difficult to
understand, that is because it makes no sequential sense.
During all of these various stop/start times, there was
only one aircraft in the scanning area, and this aircraft
was seen by eyewitnesses to explode into the water at a
time well before track K047 had ceased recording.
This sort of discontinuous information is common
among individuals who have experienced precognition or
other altered states of informational consciousness, associated with dreams, drugs and/or ESP. It is unique to
have a tape from a radar mechanism which perhaps may
demonstrate the same purposefully-discontinuous mode
of perception.
Associationally, then, whatever caused Flight 389 to
take an abrupt nosedive into the water seems to be in
effect quite similar to the "bio-plasmic" or "pranic" phenomena accompanying a strong ESP impression or poltergeist haunting.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

112

Of course, an airplane crash is not a haunting, and

only a short-sighted u.ltrasonic bat might dart from one to
the other of these mysteries in order to make some sort of
analytical comparison.
This meticulous directional disorientation has probably
led to the widespread use of the colloquial expression
"going bats," which is exactly what happened to the SAGE
radar mechanism and the crew judgment/flight instrumentation of Flight 389. Separately, these sensing devices
lost track of the usual, sequential mode of time duration
and spacial placement. Whether this mutual disorientation
was due to a pocket of altered structural density or the
presence of an alien aircraft using unusual means of propulsion cannot at this time be reliably established.
However. controlled experimentation should be done
to test whether or not psychokinetic concentration can
really alter important electronic characteristics of a continuously-oscillating time standard! such as is utilized in
radar mechanisms. A small instance of this, such as a
psychic concentrating and slightly altering pulse frequency,
might indicate the possibility of larger and more sophisticated effects on molecular structure and/or time perception.

It is a documented fact that certain pilots racing through

the Bermuda Triangle area have experienced unusual
behavior of their stopwatches, which "lost time" in traversing an area where craft often become disoriented .
Possibly the time loss and consistent instances of disorientation in this famous mystery area are due to pockets
of altered structural density, as has been discussed with
reference to Flight 389.
"New Devil's Triangle Mystery." National Enquirer, June 13. 1978.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
on Flight 389:
Gourley, Jay, The Great Lakes Triangle, Fawcett, 1977
on bats:
Griffin, Donald R., Listening in the Dark: The Acoustic Orienta
tion of Bats, Yale University Press, 1958
on radar timing devices:
Chance, Britton, Electronic Time Measurements, Dover. 1966
on molecular electronic density:
Ballhausen, C. J. and Gray, H. B., Molecular Orbital Theory,
W. A. Benjamin, Inc., 1965

HOW TO 'FINGERPRINT' A UFO

AND 'HEAR' ITS LIGHT
by Russ Reardon
available electronic device. a photoA commercially
multiplier, could take us a lot further down the UFO
road by identifying the origination of its light. For example,
when focused on a glowing light bulb, the photomultiplier
not only correctly identifies the source excitation wavelength as tungsten on its meter, but also draws the individual tungsten 'fingerprint' on its pen drop contour plotterrecorder (fig. 2). I should like to know that 24-hour ground
bases would be operational where many UFOs are sighted.
As you know, tungsten and the hundreds of other light
sources each have set wavelengths of light emission (angstroms). So they are easily detected and fingerprinted by
this equipment. Even holograms. Thus when pointed at
a UFO, the source chemical element (or whatever) causing
UFO red. blue. orange, white. or green light, would be
identified, contour mapped, and heard.
Heard? Yes! A photomultiplier can be hooked up to an
audio-amplifier which converts light vibrations-per-second
into sound. And each light source has its own individual
tone on the musical scale. So as a UFO changed colors,
it would literally write its own song! And since we could
then 'hear the light,' that might help us to see the Iightif you get my drift?
I expect the photomultiplier with its moving finger to
paint out a lot of the mystery behind those unknown lights.
Why, it would almost amount to Physical EVidence,
wouldn't it? The only trick would be to 'be there' with
this equipment.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

The photomultiplier is available in the U.S. from EMR

Photoelectric, Princeton, N.J. 08540 (image dissector
detector system Model 658A). Or from Nye Optical Co ..
Spring Valley, Calif. 92077 (spectral range from below
2000 to above 7700A). The photomultiplier with the
pen drop plotter (fig. 1) is an Amino-Bowman Spectrophotofluorometer, Catalogue No. 4-8106. (Both the increment of the excitation wavelength and the scanning
speed of the fluorescence are manually adjustable. In this
way, the entire excitation vs. fluorescence wavelength
domain will be scanned within 10-15 minutes. The photomultiplier will sense the emission intensity level at every
point in the scanned wavelength domain.) Auqioamplifiers
are available from the "Fisher" or the "Edmund's" electronics supply catalogues.
These assemblies with their proven fact-finding potential should be added to our arsenal of motion pictures,
videotapes, still photos, radar scans, computer enhancements, etc., of UFOs. I've described the state of the art of .
identifying the sources of light. Whereas, the present
state of the art of identifying unknown flying objects is dark:
let it be resolved that it won't be too long before one among
us armed with this equipment will show us the right insight in sound and fingerprints of UFO light here on these
pages.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Analytical Chemistry magazine, Vol. 50, No.4, April 1978

113

PEN DROP CONTOUR PlomR DIAGRAM

CJffS[T CONTRCI.

EXCITATION
WAVWNGTH
TRANSMIMI

H-=:-

TO REtORDER 'tXCITATICIN
WAVElfNGTH" AXIS

....._:ro"_IVl
__

r- MANUAL sa

L..._:"'_IVE_I__

HI.._MAN_CCNT_UAL_I:,_-~r-MANUAL sa
R.1IOII.t:5CENCE
WAVEUNGTH
TRANSMIMR

REF

601f1:

TO RECORDER ''FlUORESCOICE
WAVEUNGTH" AXIS

liN
1-~-1 I-INPUT
1'OR1
GAlES

NOTCH filTER

PHOTOMII.TIPLIEI
POWER SUPPLY
PEN SLEW

RETRACE
INHIBIT DELAY

[xCI1ATlON
RETRACE SW

PEN DROP

INHIBIT DElAY

R.UORESCENCE

tON1ACT ClOSURt TO

RElRACE SW

ACTIVAlE RECORDER

PEN LIFT RfLAy

Figure 1- Schematic diagram of the electronics circuit designed to generate the isointensity contour
plot. PMT: photomultiplier; source: excitation light source.

mI

Excitation Wavelength, nm

6
:z:

i .
r---~--~~--~--~----4---~--~.-~--~~.

, ... j

! .,

':.: .. 1..... i ..

.1I

.i

'

J----,...----r---....,...----~---..,---------ff_---~----+_--'-_+'t:_~T_+--_+---+_-

i .." ..~ .

. -;
.~'.,'''~:at
...
I

Figure 2 - A UFO light "fingerprint" would be printed out like this by the photomultipliers' pen
contour plotter.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

114

ULF TREE POTENTIALS AND

GEOMAGNETIC PULSATIONS
by A. C. Fraser-Smith

(Reprinted. by permission. from Nature. Vol. 271.

No. 5645. pp. 641-642. February 16.1978)
Macmillan Journals Ltd .. 1978

measurements of ultra-low-freH IGH-SENSITIVITY

quency (ULF: frequencies less than 5 Hz) geomagnetic pulsations 1 usually require elaborate receiving
antennas ranging from large air-cored coils 2 through multiturn steel, or mumetal-cored solenoids 3. 5 to small superconducting loops immersed in liquid helium 6 . Pairs of
electrodes inserted in the ground have also been used as
antennas 7.8 The need for a large spacing between the
electrodes (varying from hundreds to thousands of metres)
and the difficulty of calibrating the measurements absolutely have resulted in the almost universal use of the
more compact and easily calibrated coil-type antennas in
recent years. I describe here a new method for measuring
ULF geomagnetic pulsations, which requires a minimum
of elaborate equipment. The method is based on the use
of trees, or, more specifically, on the use of pairs of electrodes inserted into trees, as ULF receiving antennas.
There are several reasons that this new method of
measurement may be of interest. The equipment is simple
and thus the method could lead to more Widespread
observations of ULF geomagnetic pulsation phenomena.
The method of measurement also provides new information about tree potentials, that is, it shows that some, and
perhaps all, of the ULF components of these potentials
are induced by ULF geomagnetic field fluctuations and
do not originate in the trees themselves. Finally, although
it is not clear at present what effect induced ULF electric
fields may have on the growth and other vital processes
in a tree, the link between these ULF electric fields and
geomagnetic field fluctuations suggests that some environment-related changes in trees could also be influenced by
changes in geomagnetic activity. These changes may
have a natural origin (for example, the changes that occur
during a solar cycle9) or they may be caused by a variety
of human activities (by modern d.c.-powered mass transit
systems, which can produce large amplitude ULF electromagnetic fields 10) .
The ULF measurements reported here were stimulated
by the work of Burr on relatively steady-state tree potentials 11. Burr recorded these potentials for more than a
decade using a pair of specially-designed non-polarisable
electrodes inserted in the cambium of an unspecified tree
(which was probably a maple). The electrodes were about
a metre apart along the long axis of the tree and Burr
observed diurnal, 27-d, and seasonal variations. as well
as a suggestion of a correlation with sunspot activity, in
their potential difference.
Most of Burr's observations were at frequencies far
PURSUIT Summer 1979

below the frequency range for ULF geomagnetic pulsations.

One series of measurement obtained, however. during
an electrical storm suggested that ULF variations of tree
potentials might occur on occasion. I therefore began a
search for variations with frequencies predominantly in
the Pc 1 geomagnetic pulsation range (0.2-5 Hz). These
frequencies correspond approximately to the delta regime
for human brain waves.
The measurements were made using a large native
- oak, Quercus lobata. that was located near conventional
ULF recording equipment at a site on the Stanford University campus. This latter equipment uses 20.000 turn
steel-cored solenoids as ULF antennas and it operated
continuously throughout the interval during which the
tree measurements were made. Thus, simultaneous
measurements of ULF geomagnetic pulsations using both
conventional loop antennas and a tree 'antenna' were
obtained at one location.
Two steel nails were used as electrodes. Following
Burr's configuration, they were inserted about 0.05 m
into the tree along the long axis. with a spacing of 0.76 m.
The lower electrode was approximately 1 m above the
ground. and the two electrodes faced toward the geomagnetic west. Because the tree was not completely
vertical, a line joining the two electrodes would have
been inclined approximately 20 0 toward the geomagnetic
east. The diameter of the tree midway between the two
electrodes was 0.65 m.
A resistance of about 5 k 0 was typically observed between the electrodes, increasing to about 10 kO if polarisation was allowed to occur. A d.c. potential difference
was also observed that varied from day to day but whose
absolute value was usually in the range 10 to 100 mV,
with the upper electrode positive. The electrodes were
connected to a low-frequency high-gain amplifier through
an RC filter (R = 22 MO. C = 50 y F). The amplifier was
usually set for 50 db gain, and its output was filtered
(0.02 - 7 Hz) before being recorded, generally without
additional amplification. on a chart record and on analog
magnetic tape.
The ULF signals measured by this system were undoubtedly induced in the tree 'antenna' and not in the
shielded cabling between the electrodes and the recording
system; when the electrodes were disconnected from the
tree and connected to an equivalent 5 kO resistor, without any other change in the wiring or configuration of the
system, only a steady low level of white noise (typical resistor thermal noise) was observed.
Similarities between the ULF signals recorded conventionally and with the tree 'antenna' were immediately
apparent on the chart records. More detailed analysis
confirmed that Pc 1 pulsation events recorded by the two
systems were very nearly identical in all their important
characteristics. Figure 1. for example, shows spectrograms of a sequence of four Pc 1 pulsation events that
occurred during the interval 1200 to 1500 UT on 17 January 1976, and which were received by the tree 'antenna'

115
;:: ",. i:

":L. ;.~::;: ";<'.~: ::.::!.: c'; :.:::.:.:);::;;;!

'.

~.:!.

... ~;j\~i;if~:;i{1.~ ,'... :.

1.0-

'.

-I

>.

c
~

C"
~

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.
'

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.
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.
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'

(a) and the conventional north-south solenoid antenna

(b). With the exception of a lower signal-to-noise ratio for

the tree measurements, the two Pc 1 pulsation records

are closely alike. It will also be noticed that the lower frequency Pc 2/Pc 3 geomagnetic activity (frequencies in
the range 0.02 to 0.2 Hz) is recorded Similarly by both
systems. The amplitude of the ULF pulsations in the tree
potentials is very small. For the Pc 1 pulsations shown in
Fig. 1, the maximum amplitude of the potential fluctuations
was about 0.1 mV.
The nearly identical occurrence and spectral characteristics of ULF events measured by the tree electrodes and
by the conventional ULF equipment indicated that the
tree potentials were largely induced by ULF time variations
of the geomagnetic field. To investigate this possibility,
a portable planar search coil powered by a 1 Hz signal
generator was moved around the tree near the electrodes.
It was found that a 1 Hz oscillation of the potential difference between the tree electrodes was produced only
when the search coil was orientated with its moment vector in the north-south direction. When the two electrodes
were moved to the north face of the tree, a response from
the electrodes could be obtained only when the search
coil moment vector was orientated in the east-west direction. These results, and the observations of natural Pc 1
pulsations, can possibly be best understood by considering
the tree/electrode pair combination to form a collection
of conducting loop antennas in which e.m.fs may be induced by magnetic field fluctuations in the appropriate
direction. The conducting paths are provided by the conducting material of the tree (and the cambium in particular ll), and, for field fluctuations in a particular direction,
the area of the relevant loop antenna is defined by the
intersection of the tree with a vertical plane perpendicular
to the particular field direction and passing through the
two electrodes. Thus, in the measurements reported here,
the Pc 1 pulsation events observed in the tree potentials
were produced by Pc 1 pulsations of the north-south
component of the geomagnetic field.

"

'

... .:.;~:. .
'11'

'. .I

Figure 1
Spectrograms of a series of Pc 1
geomagnetic pulsation events recorded at Stanford, California, using
tree potentials (a) and a conventional solenoid antenna (b). Short
intervals of a 1 Hz calibration signal
appear at the start of each hour.
The vertical lines in the upper spectrogram are c~used either by local
electromagnetic transients or by
natural sferics; similar lines occur
in the lower spectrogram, but they
are not as obvious because the
background noise is comparatively
suppressed.

Further tests showed that the tree potentials could only

be detected in a living tree. Thus, when a tree dies, the
potentials gradually disappear as the wood dries and loses
its conductivity.
In conclusion, measurements with tree electrodes show
that ULF tree potentials are largely produced by ULF
fluctuations of the geomagnetic field (the remaining component of the potentials is probably thermal noise). Presman 12 noted that electromagnetic fields usually have an
adverse effect on living processes. If the ULF geomagnetic
pulsations have any adverse effect on the growth of trees
(and, as we have seen, they must induce electric currents
in the living material) these effects could possibly be observed in tree ring data. Pc 1 geomagnetic pulsation occurrences vary markedly over a solar cycle 9 and thus, if these
particular pulsations affect tree growth, a solar cycle in
tree ring data could occur. LaMarche and Fritts 13 searched
unsuccessfully for a relation between tree ring data and
sunspot numbers. The phase of the Pc 1 pulsation solar
cycle. however, differs by several years from the sunspot
cycle and, assuming the two cycles affect tree ring data,
they may tend to obscure each other's effects. Furthermore, other geomagnetic pulsations and higher-frequency
electromagnetic signals have their own cycles of occurrence, and their effects on tree ring formation, if any,
could add further to the complexity of the tree ring data.
Studies of these possible effects are desirable. because
the tree ring data could provide a unique record of past
ULF and higher-frequency geomagnetic activity.
I thank D. B. Coates for technical assistance. This work
was supported in part by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense and in part
by the US Office of Naval Research.
Radioscience Laboratory,
Stanford Electronics Laboratories,
Stanford University,
Stanford, California 94305
PURSUIT Summer 1979

116

REFERENCES
1. Jacobs, J. A. Geomagnetic Micropulsations 15 (Springer,
New York, 1970).
2. Campbell. W. H. Proc. IEEE 51,1337-1342 (1963).
3. Tepley, L. R. J. geophys. Res. 66, 1651-1658 (1961).
4. Lokken, J. E., Shand, J. A. & Wright, C. S. J. geophys.
Res. 68,789-794 (1963).
5. Lokken, J. E. in Natural Electromagnetic Phenomena Below 30 Kc/s (ed. Bleil, D. F.) 373-428 (Plenum, New York 1964).
6. Buxton, J. L. & Fraser-Smith, A. C. IEEE Trans. Geosci.
Elec. GE-12 109-113 (1974).
.
7. Troitskaya, V. A. J. geophys. Res. 66,5-18 (1961).
8. Heacock, R. R. & Hessler. V. P. J. geophys. Res. 67,39853995 (1962).

9. Fraser-Smith, A. C. J. geophys. Res. 75.4735-4745 (1970);

J. geophys. Res. 77. 4209-4220 (1972) .
10. Fraser-Smith, A. C. & Coates, D. B. Radio Sci. (submitted).
11. Burr, H. S. Yale J. Bioi. Med. 17,727-734 (1945): Yale
J. Bioi. Med. 19.311-318 (1947); Science 124, 1204-1205
(1956).
12. Presman, A. S. Electromagnetic Fields and Life (trans!.
Sinclair, F. L.. ed. Brown, F. A. Jr) 155 (Plenum, New York,
1970).
13. laMarche. Jr, V. C. & Fritts, H. C. Tree-Ring Bull. 32, 1933 (1972).

THE WEEKEND EFFECT:

ULF ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS,
POWERLINE HARMONICS, AND
AN INTERVIEW WITH
ANTONY C. FRASER-SMITH
field site on the Stanford University campus during
AT aDecember,
1969, continuous recordings of ultralow-frequency (ULF, frequencies less than 5 Hz) were
begun by Stanford geophysicists Antony C. Fraser-Smith
and D. B. Coates.
Although the equipment used was designed specifically for pulsations in the Pc 1 category (0.2 to 5 Hz), it
could also measure activity in the Pc 2 (0.1 to 0.2 Hz)
and Pc 3 (0.022 to 0.1 Hz) frequency bands. Beginning
in 1972, the researchers began observing intermittent
interference in the Pc 2 and Pc 3 bands as well. This interference gradually increased in strength and duration
until, by 1975, it completely dominated activity in the
Pc 2 and Pc 3 bands for some 20 hours of each 24-hour
weekday. Except for a few Saturdays before Christmas,
when typical large-amplitude weekday activity was observed for about 12 hours, the interference was almost
totally absent on weekends.
The unusually regular daily variation of the largeamplitude ULF magnetic signals as well as their distinctive
absence on weekends implied a man-made source. An
initial attempt to reduce the interference by moving the
equipment to another location was unsuccessful, suggesting the interference was not produced in the immediate
vicinity of the Stanford field site. When the equipment
was again moved, this time to a site 14 km from the campus field site, the amplitude of the ULF interference was
only slightly reduced. Finally, the eqUipment was moved
to a site 27 km away from the original one; it was found
that the amplitude of the ULF interference here was even
larger than at the campus site. Furthermore, during the
recording of the signals. D. B. Coates observed the simultaneous occurrence of large-amplitude ULF signals and
the arrival and departure of trains at the nearby Fremont
BART (San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit) station.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

A comparison made between the occurrence of the

ULF interference at the campus site and the BART schedule confirmed that the source of the interference was the
BART system.
In retrospect, the researchers noted that their first observations of large-amplitude ULF interference on the
Stanford campus coincided with BART's preparations for
and the commencement of partial revenue service on
September II, 1972, which involved only 45 km of
double track. Coinciding with the expansion of BART's
service in 1973 and 1974 was the subsequent rapid buildup in intensity of the interference. Full service throughout the 115 km system began September 16. 1974, with
the only major change since that date being the introduction of permanent evening service on January I, 1976.
BART represents the first major transit line constructed
in the United States west of the Mississippi, and its design
involved many innovations. After preliminary tests, a
1000 V dc electric propulsion system was selected, with
the supply voltage to be delivered to the trains by a third
rail conductor located alongside and slightly above the
continuously-welded steel running rails. The BART system was immediately distinguished from other mass transit
systems at the time by the selection of 1000 V dc for traction power. The others typically used ac power (often at a
frequency of 25 Hz) or considerably lower dc voltages
(e.g., 600 V). Although dc electric propulsion systems
with current distribution via a third rail were the first to be
used when railroad electrification was introduced in the
United States, at the time BART was deSigned, the prevailing tendency was to use an ac electric propulsion for
electrified railroad systems. The return to a dc system for
BART and for the new generation of rapid-transit systems
was made possible by improvements in electrical technology.

117

An important feature in regard to ULF generation is

BART's third-rail conductor. The complete third-rail
power distribution system runs about 270 km in length
and is divided into sections which are separated by gaps
that are normally kept closed. The voltage is maintained
by transformer-rectifier substations distributed along the
track at 37 locations, each of which is supplied with 34.5 Kv
ac power by the local electric utility. Contact between the
moving train and the third rail is achieved by means of an
overriding pickup shoe connected to the train. During
acceleration, a loaded 10-car train can draw as much as
7 Mw of power (i.e., a total current in the range 5 to 10 kA).
A typical current path for accelerating trains is as follows: current leaves a transformer-rectifier substation,
passes along the third rail to the train, drives the motors,
passes via the aluminum/steel-rimmed wheels on the
train into the rails, and returns to the substation largely
through the running rails. Since the running rails are only
partially insulated from the ground, some of the current is
also able to flow in the ground back to a grounding screen
at the substation (the screen also connects with the running rails). For a train running at a steady speed or decelerating, the current path is the same as for the accelerating train, but with the current reduced in magnitude.
During deceleration, the current flow reverses due to the
use of dynamic braking, which greatly reduces wear on
the friction brakes. The dynamic braking becomes ineffective and the friction brakes are used to bring the train
to a stop. During this final stage of deceleration, the flow
of current around the current path is comparatively very
small.
Although other possible alternative sources exist for the
BART ULF fields, the strength of the fields observed suggests that it is the current loops associated with each train
which constitute the primary source of the BART ULF
fields. We therefore have the following model for the
generation of the BART ULF fields. First, each train moving
on the tracks produces a time-varying magnetic field (and
therefore also an electric field) because of its associated
system of current loops. Second, the actual ULF fields
measured at a given location at any particular time are
produced by all the trains in operation on the BART tracks
at that time, and they consist of a superposition of contributions from each individual train. Not only is the ULF
characteristics of the BART fields a function of an individual train's motion, it is also therefore a function of the
relative motions of all the trains in operation at any time.
There are several secondary mechanisms which may
also contribute to the BART ULF fields. An extraneous
ULF ripple on the third rail current introduced either at
the substations or through the power supply to the substations, for example, produces its own ULF component
in the fields. ULF modulation of the third-rail current flow
caused by the dc choppers in the train motors may also
occur. Depending on the load, the choppers operate at
frequencies in the range 218 to 230 Hz, and they tend to
change tracks as the load changes. One chopper may
partially or fully lock onto another chopper's frequency,
and in this locked condition beat frequencies in the ULF
range may be produced.
Although the BART trains run according to a schedule,
this ordering has little effect on the electromagnetic fields
produced at a distant point: there may exist as many as
34 independently-varying superimposed contributions to

these fields (a maximum of 34 trains can operate on the

tracks at any time). Should the point of observation be
close to a particular section of the BART tracks, as was
the case when the equipment was moved to a new site,
the electromagnetic fields produced by nearby trains
should consist of a noisy background produced by the
distant trains and would greatly exceed those from distant
trains. Should this be the case, the time variation of the
measured fields should consist of a noiSY background
produced by the distant trains, on which is superimposed
a series of large-amplitude pulses that can be identified
with individual trains on the close section of track. This
variation was also consistent with the scientists' observations.
Since the response of the Stanford equipment used for
the ULF measurements did not extend below 0.03 Hz,
where the BART ULF fields appear to have their largest
amplitudes, the magnetic fluctuations produced by BART
near the center of the system must be very substantial
when compared with the fluctuations produced by natural activity.
One of the major requirements for ULF hydro-magnetic
wave generation in the ionosphere by a ground-based
current array is a large magnetic moment for the array.
As noted, the total ULF magnetic moment of the BART
system must be greatly variable. The track is also located
near sea water, which has a relatively high electrical conductivity. While this would reduce the effectiveness of the
BART system as a generator of ULF hydro-magnetic
waves in the ionosphere, it is still possible that the system
may excite these waves in the lower ionosphere and that
they will propagate over large distances both within the
ionosphere and the magnetosphere. If that were the case,
distance observations of the BART -generated ULF signals may help clarify some of the outstanding questions
about the generation and propagation of natural ULF
signals. Also, the semi-controlled large-amplitude ULF
fields produced in the ground and in the vicinity of the
BART "antenna" could possible be used to probe the
structure of the ground. More speculatively, they could
be used to monitor the electrical characteristics of earthquake faults in the San Francisco Bay area and in other
locations where the fields are still measurable.
For some time, the study of naturally occurring ULF
geomagnetic pulsations has been hindered by the lack of
artifiCial, controlled sources which would make possible
active experiments in the ionosphere and the magnetosphere and thus help distinguish source and propagation
effects. There has been an interest in developing an artificial, controlled source of ULF electromagnetic fields for
this purpose. For this reason, the identification of the
BART system as a powerful and potential completely
specified source of ULF electromagnetic fields is of considerable interest. Its existence could make possible new
experiments on ULF wave generation and propagation
which could aid in explaining some of the properties of
the naturally occurring ULF signals.
Other systems similar to the BART system are planned
in the United States and elsewhere. It appears likely that
all these systems will produce large-amplitude ULF electromagnetic fields. Proliferation of these sources may
pose an interference threat to geomagnetic observatories
that are well removed from the new rapid transit systems.
If ionosopheric propagation of the ULF interference should
PURSUIT Summer 1979

118

be involved, it is possible that geomagnetic observatories

could record ULF interference at distances of 1000 km or
more, depending on the strength of the sources and the
ionospheric conditions.
Attention should also be drawn to other possible sources
of ULF electromagnetic fields. These possible sources, in
addition to other rapid transit systems similar to BART,
include high-voltage dc power transmission lines, electric
railways using dc power, and dc-powered mine haulage
systems. Although there is presently only one high-voltage
dc (HVDC) transmission line in operation in the United
States, more HVDC lines will soon become operational.
It is expected that these lines will become increasingly
more important and Widespread in future years. Since
the HVDC lines are of great length and carry large currents (the existing one-the Pacific Intertie-is about
1300 km long and can carry currents up to 1800 A),
they are potentially powerful sources of ULF electromagnetic fields provided that ULF fluctuations in line current
can occur and that the separation between the cables is
large enough to give a current loop with a substantial
magnetic moment.
In September 1978 SITU representatives traveled to
the Stanford campus to speak with Dr. Fraser-Smith.
We asked him about an overall weekend increase in disturbances of the earth's magnetic field ("geomagnetic
activity") that he has observed, and how his findings relate
to those of another Stanford professor, Robert A. Helliwell,
whose theoretical work done over the last 20 years indicates that a small amount of radiation leaking from the
earth's surface into space can there provoke a disturbance
about one thousand times greater than itself. Some of
Fraser-Smith's data is derived from century-old records,
and he finds the effect persisting from the present until
about 80 years ago. Fraser-Smith's suggestion that the
weekend effect is caused in part by the power lines that
crisscross the United States is corroborated by Helliwell's
more recent research. Describing their work, Dr. FraserSmith clearly indicated the importance of their findings:
"The initial idea for a search for a weekend change in
geomagnetic activity came from our studies of the interference created by BART. Our equipment at Stanford
was getting saturated for about 12 hours or more a day,
except on weekends. At the time we did not know that
BART was the source of the interference, but it seemed
pretty clear that the source had to be man-made-there
is no reason for nature to have a "weekend effect,," as
1 have been calling it. So I began analyzing some data
coming in from remote stations around the world which
should be completely free from man-made effects. When
I analyzed it I found there was a tendency for this activity
to peak up a little bit on weekends. The fact that there
was a weekend effect indicated to me that there was
some man-made contamination. That's how we got into
this weekend effect-thinking of man-made contamination.
"At the same time, Helliwell and his collaborators,
working in parallel with me. were looking into the power
line harmonic radiation in great detail, and they began to
feel that the radiation was not only passing out through
the earth's atmosphere into space, it was actually getting

PURSUIT Summer 1979

out there and modifying the Van Allen radiation belt particles and through them modifying a lot of other thingsin fact modifying many things out there in the radiation
belt region that we had always thought were completely
free of human effects.
'This finding coincided very nicely with my work, because the only possible explanation I could see for the
weekend effect I had been observing was that it was caused
by power line harmonic radiation, the reason being that
there's less power used during weekends from the big
power-producing regions, so the radiation from there is
less. Assuming the power line harmonic radiation suppresses the natural processes that produce geomagnetic
activity, there should be more activity on weekends.
"I guess the feeling that comes out of all our work is
that everything is tied together rather more closely than
we thought in the past. Helliwell was observing effects in
his very-low-frequency (VLF) range, and I was observing
effects in the ultra-low-frequency (ULF) range that were
all produced by the one source: 60 Hz and 50 Hz harmonic radiators on the earth. We are quite sure these
effects are occurring now and that they are really quite
important scientifically.
"The proliferation of sources of electromagnetic fields
in recent years has begun to worry me. My work indicates that there is now no place on earth where geomagnetic activity is unaffected by human activities. And then
there is the huge increase in electromagnetic fields produced in the San Francisco Bay area by BART. Physicists are very well aware of the fact that electric fields add
up. They may also subtract, but if they are in the same
direction they will add up. It doesn't matter what their
frequency is, they always add and subtract.
"Any cell in my body is exposed to the electric fields
from: the student transmitter here at Stanford; the electric fields generated by the BART fluctuations; electric
fields generated by microwave radiation; electric fields
generated by fluorescent lighting; and all these things
have a general tendency to increase the overall level.
'This room. for example, is full of all sorts of electromagnetic radiation. Every cell in my body has a level of
electric and magnetic fields around it, and I know that
once the electric field reaches a certain level it is possible
to disrupt some of the structure within the cell. So it worries
me generally that we are being exposed to an increaSing
total of electromagnetic fields and that people investigating
particular types of radiation may not be fully aware of
other types of radiation and how they may all interact.
'The problem is, we have a situation where there are
so many sources of electromagnetic radiation that there's
no way of minimizing it anymore. The whole world is becoming contaminated. At the moment there's no real
effort being made to minimize it."

.. .

The information in this article has been extracted, by permiSSion.

from an article entitled "Large amplitude ULF electromagnetic
fields from BART," by A. C. FraserSmith and D. B. Coates. in
Radio Science. Vol. 13, No.4. JulyAugust, 1978. pp. 661
668, and from a personal interview with Dr. FraserSmith by
SITU representatives R. Martin Wolf and Steven Mayne in
September. 1978.

119

WHAT TO BELIEVE - OR,

PARING DOWN THE PARADIGM
by Dr. Arlan Keith Andrews, Sr.
It should be reiterated that no statement made by
an individual author in the pages of Pursuit should
be taken to represent the views of the Society as a
whole.
In printing the following article, the editors of
Pursuit feel that Dr. Andrews is making a valid point
(j.e., phenomena must be evaluated by means of a
"reality check, " or in his own words "by comparing
what we observe with what we have previously
classified as 'real' and 'not-real"'). We should point
out, however, that there are inherent dangers in
that approach, and Dr. Andrews perches precariously on the edge of that danger zone. The problem
lies in denying any new possibilities solely because
we have never considered them previously as part
of our reality paradigm. Any consensus of reality
must constantly re-evaluate itself, and new discoveries in all fields of research contribute to the reevaluation of our reality.
Dietrick E. Thomsen, the Senior Editor of Science
News, speaks for a lot of us when, in answer to
a letter to the editor (in Science News, Vol. 115,
No.2, Jan. 13, 1979), he writes: "To insist that the
only reality are phenomena that can be submitted
to the paradigms of classical science is itself a religion."
The editors of Pursuit would only add one word
more to Thomsen's observation: Amen.

HAT do
believe? As a
reader (and preWsumably
a Fortean of sorts) you are exposed to an
you

Pursuit

unending stream of "Damned Facts" -from falling frogs

to Sasquatch, from UFOs to Vile Vortices-all outside
the conventional scientific "paradigm," or basic perceived
order of the Universe. Obviously, Forteans are willing to
accept-or at least speculate upon-a wider range of
occurrences, and thus by definition, have a wider paradigm. We also tend toward rather unusual theories to
account for these unusual events. Perhaps justifiably, we
are somewhat proud of our broader glimpses of the Truth.
But must we believe everything?
The purpose of developing a notion of universal order
is to help to claSSify knowledge, allOWing us to determine
the priorities of actions that should occur as the environment changes. These "events" (i.e., changes in the environment as perceived) are broadly classed as "real" and
"not real." If an event is judged to be "real," such as an
oncoming auto, we initiate action-in this case, jumping
aside. If an event is perceived to be "not-real," such as a
dream, mirage, or optical illusion, usually no physical
action is taken. Thus a reality check occurs by comparing
what we observe with what we have previously classified
as "real" and "not-real." This human instinct of realitychecking is at once an evolutionary survival trait and a
possibly dangerous mental straightjacket.

A primitive paradigm that viewed natural forces as

gods to be placated served Man as spiritual comfort for
thousands of years by explaining the injustices of brutal
life-yet exacted a terrible cost in progress, toil, and human
life.
As technology attenuated the severity of life in the wild,
Man adjusted the paradigms accordingly, until the modern
age evolved with its two antithetical views-nature with
and without God, or Religion versus Science. Although
Science demands more rigorous training for its acolytes
and shows more material gains for their efforts, both sects
are based on faith in unseen forces and each is relatively
intolerant of other views.
As Forteans we have feet in both of these camps and
others as well-with the remaining Pagans and their
natural (i.e., Earth) religions; with parapsychologists who
hover between the Two Powers; and with the scientific
UFOlogists who are beyond them all! And as such, we
must have special requirements for a believable, if not
quite totally knowable, paradigm, against which to perform our own "reality-checks." We must have consistent
rules if we are to convert others to our paradigm.
For example, consider a recent Pursuit article about a
photograph of a Loch Ness creature. When submitted to
photoanalysis the "creature" appeared to be transparent
with background waves showing through! Rather than
merely saying, "Tough luck, lads; please don't bother us
any more with such stuff, we haven't the time," we were
subjected to affidavits as to the veracity of the photographer
and his wonderful personality, and then to suggestions
that the creature must have been "multi-dimensional"
and therefore naturally semi-transparent!
Fellow Forteans, when we submit evidence to conventional scientific evaluation. we implicitly agree to abide by
the rules of the game! If we bring a Geiger detector to a
UFO landing site and detect no radiation, do we then say
that there must be "anti-radiation" and therefore not detectable? If our thermistors in a haunted house fail to
register temperature changes in the "cold spots," do we
reject the negative results and suggest an entire alternate
universe to explain our failure? Of course not. We question the observers, record the known correlations and
then file the data. If such data is "real" it can eventually
be compared to other such events and some pattern or
forms detected. In this way we evolve a paradigm for
Fortean studies. We cannot have a useful means of judging
progress if we do not generate that "reality-check." If we
are forced to believe, or spend our time evangelizing
others to believe, that everything is real, that no hoaxers
exist, that no misinterpretation of natural phenomena
occurs, we are doomed to wander forever in the occult
wasteland. Like the roadside fortunetellers of the last
50,000 years, we would play games with our vast psychic
potential and waste it on superstition and trivia.
As one example, the enormous amount of harm Uri
Geller has foisted upon our field is incalculable. While
performing inane sleight-of-hand tricks on credulous
PURSUIT Summer 1979

120

"scientists," he has caused predictably unproductive research into "key-bending," diverting time and funds from
other PK research. A simple reality-check with James
Zwinge and Yascha Katz (respectively, a magician and
Geller's former manager) would have saved thousands of
man-hours and millions of words in magazines and journals. But the damage is done, and continues. And supposedly, robots from Hoova continue to direct Uri toward
Messiahship ...
"Everything is possible" is a common Fortean statement. Whether it is a true sentiment or not, we do observe that everything is not equally probable. This process of categorizing probabilities gives us our meaning of
'reality." It is much more probable, in my paradigm, that
Adamski's saucers were chicken brooders. than that the
far side of the Moon is inhabited, or that Venus is a nice

place to live. It is much more likely, in my universe, that

the Loch Ness creatures are closely related to all other
forms of Earthly life, than that they exist in more than
three dimensions. Why?
In Adamski's case, we have objective proof that his
celestial bodies don't support life as we know it. In the
Loch Ness case. Nessie reports are consistent with activities of f1esh-and-blood amphibians, and furthermore,
there are no-repeat zero, zilch-cases of a sighting,
capture, carcass, feces, tracks, etc., of any living creature
that is occasionally transparent and that lives in and out of
our dimensions.
If we attempt to create entirely new universes and new
laws to "explain" each anomalous event, we may as well
forget any concept of advancement of our cause or progress toward solutions. And if you perSist, count me out.

THE ONE PHYSICAL EXPERIMENT

IMPOSSIBLE TO EXPLAIN
by T. 8. Pawlicki
the end of the Nineteenth Century, the science of
AT physics
was brought to an impasse by paradoxes
created first by the Young Twin-Slit Experiment and finally by the Michelson-Morley Experiment. Albert Einstein
is credited with the greatest stroke of scientific genius of
all time by proposing the equations of the Special Theory
of Relativity as a solution to the Michelson-Morley Experiment. But Einstein's stroke was not of genius; it was a stroke
of the same audacity that inspired Alexander to cut the
Gordian Knot. The Michelson-Morley Experiment proved
by measurement that light always manifests the same
speed relative to every observer regardless of the velocity
of the observer. All Einstein proposed was a contraction
of time and/or space in geometric ratio to speed so that
the product of the two functions remained constant. Relativity explains nothing at all; it is merely a Fisherman's
Rule to make the experimental data conform to the bookkeeping system. Pressed between a similar gap between
inventory and accounts payable, businessmen exercise
conSiderably more mathematical acumen to compress
profits relative to the velocity of cash flow, but commercial
accountants do not regard fiddling the books as indication
of any great genius unless it gets past the auditors from
the IRS; would Relativity pass a tax audit? But no one
cared that Einstein's equations told us nothing about the
way the universe unfolds that was not already known,
as long as it lifted the science of physics over the impasse.
Once past the mental block. no one made any further
attempt to explain the Michelson-Morley Experiment.
and the Young Twin-Slit Experiment was forgotten along
with all the other experiments that threaten the validity of
the prevailing wisdom.
In the Young Experiment, an electron is directed at a
target surface drilled with two microscopic apertures placed
PURSUIT Summer 1979

as close together as technologically feasible. Under observation, the electron passes through one hole or the other,
registering the event as a splat on a sheet of photographic
film directly behind the target screen. The Young Experiment proves that the electron is a particle.
But whEm the same experiment is performed in the dark,
the electron passes through both holes at the same time.
The event registers on the photographic film as a diffraction wave pattern of concentric circles expanding from
each aperture, and a wave interference pattern where the
two intersect. The Young Experiment proves conclusively
that the electron is a structure of waves. This experiment,
producing contradictory data, is called the one fact of
physics impossible to explain, by Nobel prizewinner Richard
Feynman.
Now, phYSiCists have tolerated the wave/particle paradox since at least the time of Newton, so one more experiment is regarded as inconsequential. The Young
Experiment, however, is not merely another paradox to
molder in the scientific closet, but a fatal disaster to the
entire philosophy of science. The foundation of scientific
conception is the axiomatic belief that the universe is an
objective reality that unfolds according to regular laws
regardless of observation. The significance of the Young
Experiment is not another example of the wave/particle
paradox, but the conclusive fact that the action of light
converts a wave structure into a particle structure. This,
in itself, is a momentous discovery which no respectable
professional scientist, with the exception of Tom Bearden,
is willing to countenance. And now that Bearden is calling
attention to the experiment, the profession does not want
to countenance Bearden.
The observation that the action of light can convert
a wave phenomenon into a particle phenomenon is selfevident and superficial, however novel it may be. It takes
no heavy sweat to formulate a set of equations to accommodate the fact and fit the mechanism into the scientific

121

structure of photo-activity, like the effect of light upon

silver halide. Unlike the conversion of silver halide, however, the conversion of wave to particle in the Young
Experiment is not the effect of radiation, of any frequency,
but of light. The only difference between radiation and light
is the perception of the observer. In other words, it is the
act of observation that converts a diffuse and undifferentiated wave structure into a particle structure possessing
mass, instant and location.
You will recognize by now that the paradox resembles
the old problem as to whether a tree falling in a forest
makes a sound if no one is present to hear it. The Young
Experiment goes further to prove that there is no sound,
no tree and no forest unless someone is present to perceive them. Reality is a special kind of solipsism. Now,
Quantum Physics has always accepted the concept that
the mechanical process of perception alters the phenomenon being observed, but scientific belief cannot accommodate the proposition that the act of observation not
only defines but Virtually creates objective reality. This
proof threatens to dissolve science in a sea of magic.
In my previous article, "Mind Over Matter" (Pursuit,
Vol. 11, No. I, Winter, 1978), the Michelson-Morley
Experiment is resolved upon immediate inspection of the
Plate Flutter Model. The wave functions of the Fitzgerald
Contraction are also self-evident in the Model because it
requires merely two dimensions of space to demonstrate
the mechanics. The Young Twin-Slit Experiment can be
proven by the Plate Flutter Model as well, but the mechanics are not in evidence because the operations require
a full extension of space in all six dimensions. It requires
a developed faculty for spacial visualization to project the
coordinates of the Plate Flutter Model from two dimensions
to six, so if you are unable to conceptualize more than
one, two or three extensions of space, you will have to
look at the following geometry without recourse to valid
criticism. I am sorry that I lack the mathematical training
to express these concepts in the conventional language
of algebra, so I am limited to performing my operations
with tangible models. This is not quite so great a handicap
as my critics charge because a tangible working model is
the incontrovertible proof that the calculations are correct;
one cannot be sure that more abstract mathematics possess
anything more than formal propriety until the answers are
tested with a tangible model. For those who believe tangible reality is not quite so real as abstract reality, however,
Tom Bearden has formulated a set of algebraic equations
summing up the propositions of this article; he describes it
as the photonic reaction, and his copyrighted papers are
on file in the United States Defense Department Library.
If iron filings are used to render the lines of force visible
around a small bar magnet, it will be seen that the dynamic
field has the geometric configuration of a torus. The crosssection is shown in figure 1. The length, width and height
are the three axes of extension in space. The lines of force
are a wave pattern, and this wave pattern is the essential
definition of the field torus. Wave length not only establishes the radial extension of the field, but also the energy
level of the field at any given point. Because energy level
is essential to the field, but not included in axial dimensions, the wave length functions as a fourth spacial dimension. There are more cogent proofs establishing frequency
as the fourth dimension of space/time, and I have described
them to some extent in other articles, but the fourth dimen-

sion is not pertinent to the Young Experiment. The Young

Experiment yields its data from the mechanism of phase.
Phase determines where the full spectrum of wavelengths
in a field torus intersect. Phase is the fifth dimension of
space/time, and the Young Experiment proves that
phase is the factor determining where and when a field
will become manifest as particle.
The vectors of white sound manifest no preferred direction. Therefore. each wave flow in one direction must
be balanced by a counterflow in the opposite direction.
If flow and counterflow are equal and opposite, however,
the Plate Flutter Model would have to be an experiment
demonstrating statics, not dynamics. Since we know that
the velOcity of the material powder in the Plate Flutter
Model is a function of phase tuning, it follows that the
very material particles of the powder must themselves be
phase tuned. The lines of force surrounding a magnet are
static standing-waves. This means that the magnetic field
torus must be generated by a flow of essential wave energy
balanced by a counterflow. Yet, electrons and other
charged particles will flow from one pole of the field to
the other. This means that the electrons, and other charged
or polarized particles, must be phase tuned to the frequencies manifest by the magnetic field.
The phenomenon of standing-waves moving in a field
of random vectors can be explained by a geometrical
structure calculated from the equations of Probability.
The field is comprised of three toroids interpenetrating
each other, each torus being constituted of vector flow
and counterflow in equal balance, and the central axis of
each torus is aligned at right angles to the other two, as
shown in figure 2. This is a six-dimensional structure
which cannot be represented clearly in a two-dimensional
diagram. You must possess the faculty for multidimensional spacial visualization to understand its local relationships and internal dynamics. But even if this structure
were presented to you as a full-dimensional model, without the faculty for spacial analysis, you would be incapable of perceiving what you observed, just as philosophers
were incapable of perceiving that all objects fell with the
same acceleration until Galileo showed them how to see.
(For opening the eyes of philosophers, you will remembet,
Galileo got put to the Inquisition. The moral may be to let
sleeping dogs lie.)
Although the field of random vectors is balanced in all
directions on a gross scale, on a Quantum scale, waves
move in one direction and another. The Calculus of The
Drunkard's Walk proves that the result of all the little
movements is a spiral vortex, balanced by a countervortex. We find, then, that a field of random vectors can
be defined as a congregation of infinitesimal wave vortices harmonically integrated to form an ascending scale of
compound vortices until the entire defined field spins as
a single unit. Because the number of vectors is Virtually
infinite, and the number of elementary vortices only
nominally less numerous, every part of the field vortex is
identical to every other part for all practical purposes.
In theory, very fine distinctions can be made throughout
the conformation of the field vortex, and these distinctions
are critical to the way its phenomena unfold. but these
definitions are another story. For most practical purposes,
the field vortex is a perfect hologram.
A hologram is structurally undifferentiated. Anyone
who has played with commercially marketed holograms
PURSUIT Summer 1979

122

- - ---+---

FIGURE
FIELD

TORUS

ILLUSTRATiNG

FLOW VECTORS AND

. knows, however, that when the radiation coming from

a hologram is subjected to the operation of a phase-tuned
filter, a stereo-image becomes manifest. Manufactured
holograms are not structurally undifferentiated: their
waves are biased with the pictorial image. If a perfectly
random hologram is subjected to a regular, phase-tuned
filter, a standing-wave, spherical vortex will become manifest within the field, the dimensions of the material structure
being a function of the frequency of the filter. As a dynamic
field structure, the standing-wave sphere will not only
spin on its own polar axis, but also revolve around the
main axis of its field. The revolutions will also precess
around the other two axes of the field. The Plate Flutter
Model will show the rotation of the standing-wave vortex
and its revolution around the axis of the entire field along
a spiral trajectory. We can infer, therefore, that the particles of powder function as a phase-tuned filter to select
one set of resultants from the undifferentiated hologram.
You will recognize that this model represents an electron
in its atomic field and a planet in its stellar field.
Essentially, the field vbrtex is an undifferentiated and
PURSUIT Summer 1979

1
COUNTERFLOW

infinite wave structure. This is why the electronic field will

pass through both slits at the same time in the Young
Experiment. There, you have the paradox half-explained
already. See how easy it is when you do not give way to
panic at the prospect of intellectual catastrophe?
When the electronic field is phase differentiated, however, the electron becomes manifest as a particle, and this
material sphere can pass through only one slit at a time.
There, you have the other half of the paradox. The impossible did not take a bit longer, did it?
Now, you are going to tell me that I have explained
nothing. What produces the differentiation of phase in
the electronic field? Well, this is so obvious that I did not
think it worthy of further mention. If the electron is manifest as a wave structure in the dark and a particle structure
in the light, there cannot be the slightest question that light
functions as a phase-tuned filter.
The Young Twin-Slit Experiment is proven conclUSively,
but a properly scientific curiosity will not be satisfied with
the information that light functions as a phase tuner,
creating our material reality from the infinite potential

123

FIGURE 2
FIELD VORTEX COMPOSED OF 3 FIELD TORI
realities of the undifferentiated field. The problem, like all
good scientific pursuits, is elevated to a higher level. How
and why does light define our reality? It is at this point
that the solution to the Young Experiment terrifies scientific
philosophy and the Experiment becomes a proper subject
of Fortean enquiry. In my previous article, I presented
evidence showing that frequency of radiant energy determines the state of conscious perception. The frequency
that is consciousness is experienced as light. Therefore,
consciousness is a phase defined space; the current pursuit of consciousness as a phenomenon of purely frequency
is a red herring. It follows that the phase angle to which
a consciousness is tuned creates the physical body of the
perceiver from the matrix of the universal hologram along
with all of the objects of perception. In other words, everything perceived as real is a physical extension of each
person's own mind. The fact that we share a common
reality is due to the fact that we are all tuned to the same
phase. All education is determined to reinforce the reality

AT

RIGHT

ANGLES

of the dominant minds in society by making as certain as

the vicissitudes of biology make possible, that everyone
of us is locked into the same phase of consciousness.
This is what religion is all about, and this is why all religious
philosophies must be essentially totalitarian. Modern
science is the most totalitarian of all religions, according
to its most respected spokespeople.
At this point, my calculations and models differ from
Bearden's. Insofar as I am able to understand his equations,
the Bearden "photonic reaction" is manifest as an abrupt
right-angle rotation of phase when light intersects with an
undifferentiated field. Because my models establish phase
rotation as the definitive measure of energy, I fail to see
how this abrupt rotation can occur without a drastic conversion of energy. I expect the reason for our difference is that we are doing our respective analyses on
different scales, but Bearden is slow to make his datum
points clear to me. On my scale of operation, rotation of
phase is gradual and directly commensurate with spacial
PURSUIT Summer 1979

124

extension. What we recognize as consciousness is defined by phase focussing to such a fine angle of perception that the distinction between form and field can be
seen only as squarely abrupt. Persons experienced in
tuning their heads to alternative states of consciousness
testify to a gradual defocussing of phase with a commensurately gradual loss of definition between form and field.
As phase focussing increases its acceptance angle, the
light spreads into the dark of the field until everything is
lost in its brilliance. This is what the divine light is all about.
All human enterprise is ambiv~lent. The scientific curiosity is as terrified of learning as it is eager to know. It is in
its attempts to serve both passions that science has become
complicated, ritualized and obscurantist. The Young
Twin-Slit Experiment has been put aside as insoluble not
because it is refractory but because its solution is altogether

too clear and immediate to satisfy the human ambivalence.

You see, when you combine the data of the Young
Experiment with the Plate Flutter Model and the research
into brain waves, you will find that the process of tuning
one's consciousness to an extremely fine focus is identical
to the mechanical operation of bringing material bodies
into existence into this life. Conversely, loss of phase
focussing is identical to death and dematerialization.
These simple experiments prove conclUSively that all the
great religions are based on an essential scientific provable
truth, but no ecumenical philosophy is emotionally capable of accepting the truth of its own faith. And science is
the most ecumenical of all philosophies established as an
institution. In other words, scientific problems are refractory mainly because too many scientists are not wholly
scientific.

METRICATION: EVEN PYRAMID POWER

WON'T SAVE THE SACRED INCH
by Robert J. Schadewald
The following article is reprinted with permission from the
August, 1978 issue of TWA Ambassador magazine, copy
righted (first rights only) by Trans World Airlines, Inc., and
from the author, Robert Schadewald.

Joshua dragged his feet around Jericho, and Noah

I Fmeasured
the Ark in inches, why are we adopting the
metric system? Why, indeed?
On December 23, 1975, President Ford signed the
Metric Conversion Act, and the U.S. began inching toward
metrication. The response from the public hasn't exactly
broken the applause meter. Many people seem to think
that the British system of measurements-inches, pounds
and degrees Fahrenheit-is somehow sacred. There's just
a chance they might be right.
Ironically, metrication coincides with a boom in "Pyramid Power." By this time, you must have heard about the
mysterious and beneficial occult energy supposedly generated by the pyramid shape. According to believers, the
pyramid energy helps mummify mummies. If you store
food in a pyramid-shaped container, it won't spoil. Razor
blades kept in a pyramid are sharpened. Meditating in a
pyramid will increase your cosmic awareness, and a pyramid over your bed ....
What exactly does Pyramid Power have to do with the
metric system? Well, back in 19th-century England, the
pyramids, along with Noah and Joshua, were dragged
into a conspiracy to block metrication.
To begin With, the French concocted the metric system
at the close of the 18th century as a replacement for their
archaic system of measurements. Rather than make the
new units purely arbitrary, they made the length of the
meter equal to l/lO,OOO,OOOth of the distance from the
equator to the North Pole. Then a liter is l/lOth of a meter,
cubed, and a kilogram is the weight of a liter of water.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

The metric system has some obvious advantages, and

in 1854, a Decimal Association was organized in England
to promote its adoption. Had England gone metric then,
the U.S. would have followed. But there was broad-based
opposition in England: aristocrats associated the metric
system with the French Revolution; the merchant and
working classes were generally opposed, and so were a
few scientists. The brilliant young Astronomer Royal of
Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth, set out to defeat it.
Smyth based his strategy on an obscure book by one
John Taylor, The Great Pyramid: Why Was It Built? And
Who Built It? Though Taylor had never seen the Great
Pyramid of Cheops, he was able to conclude that it wasn't
designed by a heathen Egyptian. Taylor's suspicion that
Noah was the actual architect is discounted by modern
pyramidologists, and even Smyth wasn't convinced. But
Smyth was very impressed by Taylor's proof that the inch
was the basic unit of measurement used on both the Great
Pyramid and the Ark. If the Ark was measured in inches,
it would be a sacrilege to abandon the inch for the centimeter, Smyth reasoned.
Smyth studied everything written about the Great Pyramid and all the measurements made of it. He concluded
that the fundamental unit of measurement was indeed
the "sacred inch," and that said unit varied from the British
inch by only l/lOth of one per cent.
There was more. In a chamber of the Great Pyramid,
there is a hollowed-out block of granite, much like a bathtub. Egyptologists believe it is a sarcophagus intended to
hold the mummy of Cheops. Taylor had suggested that
the capacity of the sarcophagus was precisely equal to the
capacity of the Ark of the Covenant, which Joshua had
carried around Jericho to make the walls come tumbling
down. Smyth's studies of the sarcophagus convinced him
that the Egyptians also used the pint and the pound.
The Great Pyramid turned out to be a storehouse of
knowledge supporting the sacred old British way of mea-

125

suring things. Consider: the base of the pyramid is 9,125

sacred inches long, which, divided by the number of days
in the year, is 25. Twenty-five inches is the sacred cubit,
Smyth figured, exactly l/lO,OOO,OOOth of the earth's
polar radius. Furthermore, the height of the pyramid is a
billionth of the distance to the sun, and its weight is a
quadrillionth of the weight of the earth.
Smyth published his two-volume refutation of the metric
system, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, in 1864.
The books were very successful, and the Metric Act,
which passed Parliament that year, did not make the
metric system mandatory, but only allowed its use in certain cases. Even this concession to the metric system was
repealed in 1878.

Smyth's triumph was only temporary. His speculations

about the pyramid had a brief vogue, but Egyptologists
now universally considered his sacred inch and sacred
cubit sheer fantasy. Only a few pyramidologists (privately
referred to by Egyptologists as "pyramidiots") still defend Smyth's ideas. England has gone metric, and the
U.S. is rapidly following. For the ultimate insult, some
occult supply houses now offer "Power Pyramids" in
metric sizes.
Poor Smyth must be rotating beneath his-you guessed
it-pyramid-shaped tombstone.

ORNITHOLOGICAL ERRATICS:
WINTER 1978-1979
by Loren Coleman
OME unusual winter visitors have been Sighted in the
S
United States during 1978-1979, especially as viewed
from my vantage point in the Northeast.
In October and November 1978, most of the focus was
on Rhode Island. There, in a field in South Kingstown on
November 11th, an unidentified hunter shot and killed a
European barnacle goose which was among a flock of
Canada and snow geese. Barnacle geese winter in Scotland and Ireland. Around the same time, a South African
shelduck of a sort which usually travel between Cape
Town and the Transvaal was Sighted in the South Kingstown-Charlestown, Rhode Island area. Most "experts"
felt the shelduck was an aviary escapee. They were not
so certain about the barnacle goose. "It's just an unusual
year," Charles Wood of the Audubon Society of Rhode
Island said. 1
Around the same time, also in Rhode Island, a white
pelican made an appearance, and the speculation was
the pelican was working his way home to the Gulf of
Mexico via Little Compton and Newport. l Perhaps, for in
October-November, 1978, another white pelican was
Sighted on Cape Cod. 2 Or perhaps not; the white pe Iican
sighted in Rhode Island was the first one seen there since
1946. 3
Meanwhile in the Chicago area, on five occasions from
November 19 to December 1, bird-watchers spotted a
Ross's gull. This was only the second time the Ross's gull
had been reported in the continental United States. In the
spring of 1975, an estimated 3,000 people viewed the
bird from a beach near Boston. The gull is a native of the
Arctic and breeds in Siberia. It has been sighted in northern Europe twelve times. Dr. William Beecher, Director
of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, commented on the
recent sightings: "The bird has gotten here and it's rare.
Aside from that we can't hinge any facts on it."4.5
Some Arctic birds tend to be infrequent visitors to the
United States during the colder months of the year, but
the 1978-1979 season appears to be exceptional.

A phenomenal number of Arctic owls have been reported in the northeast since November 1978. Snowy
owls have always been well-known Arctic viSitors, and
Marcia Litchfield, naturalist for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, told me usually one or two are reported in
New England every year. But this year, as of the 30th of
January 1979, she noted "conservatively" fifteen snowy
owls have been seen in Massachusetts alone. 2 For example, a snowy owl was observed guarding its prey,
a pigeon, on a building in downtown Pittsfield in November; a snowy owl was seen near runway 4 at Logan Airport
in December; and two snowy owls were viewed near Salisbury in January, all in Massachusetts. 6 .7.8 Snowy owls
were sighted in increased numbers throughout the northern
United States.
Another Arctic owl, the hawk owl, was being reliably
reported from the northern extremes of the northeast.
Four, maybe five, were seen in Maine, and two were
Sighted in New Brunswick during November-December
1978 and January 1979. 2 During the last week of January vague sightings of a hawk owl. near Seabrook, New
Hampshire, and Salisbury, Massachusetts, were recorded
by the Massachusetts Audubon SOciety. 8
Great gray owls, yet another Arctic interloper, were
also seen throughout the northeast. Three were Sighted
in upstate New York, and during mid-January, one was
seen on Long Island. The Long Island incident was viewed
as extremely rare as the great gray owl is hardly ever seen
that far south. 2 During the third week in January, one of
these owls was' frequenting Hancock, New Hampshire,
and in the last week of that month, great gray owls were
seen concurrently at the Audubon SOCiety headquarters
in Falmouth, Maine, and the Ipswich Wildlife Sanctuary
at Topsfield, Massachusetts. 2.8.9 In February, a great gray
owl was Sighted around Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Marcia Litchfield, Audubon SOciety naturalist, felt all the
Arctic owls were being forced southward by the lack of
food, and noted the sheltered nature of the sanctuaries
gave them an oasis for survival. 2
The rarest specimen to be spotted in the invasion of
Arctic owls is the boreal owl seen at Salisbury, Massachusetts, on December 31, 1978. This Arctic owl is a native
PURSUIT Summer 1979

126

of northern Canada and Alaska, and Joan Irish, another

Audubon Society naturalist, felt it may have come south
because of inclement weather in the far north. Heidi
Harrington took a series of excellent photographs of
Salisbury's boreal owl, the first one viewed in New England
in 36 years. The owl was not seen before or after th~ 31st
of December, and thus it was fortunate Heidi got her
snapshots, for I am certain no one would have believed
her. 10
Arctic owls are irregular visitors to the continental United
States but they do seem to have a cyclical pattern of reappearances. This has especially been found to be true of
snowy owls. I have records of snowy owls being found in
central Illinois in January 1967, and January 1971. 11 . 12
In the context of the reports of one of those finds, an
Audubon Society spokesperson is quoted as saying that
every fourth year the birds migrate south from the Arctic
when their food supply runs low. 11 Projecting this pattern from 1967 and 1971, then January 1979 would
appear to fit within this fourth-year pattern for snowy
owls. But why the increase in sightings of other Arctic owls?
Even within the Massachusetts Audubon Society there
appears to be a disagreement. Joan Irish, on the one
hand, feels the weather is to blame, and Marcia litchfield pOints to the food supply. The latter reason would
agree with the theoretical model most ornithologists use
for the basis of the snowy owl's cycle of southward inclusions, but would the snowy owls' food supply decreases
be comparable to the other Arctic owls' respective niches'
declines? The evidence would point to a combination of
factors, which source must logically be meteorological in
nature. A closer examination of the changing patterns in
the winter ranges of birds of prey may give some insight
into an overall gradual shift in the ecosphere, caused by
variables in seasonal weather and small animal survival.

The ornithologically interesting winter of 1978-1979

may have been an enigma, but the chronicling of the
phenomenon of Arctic bird intrusions should be examined
or begun, with an eye to viewing the data on a broader
scale.
Then again, maybe it was "just an unusual year ...

REFERENCES
1. Boston Sunday Globe, 26 November 1978, p. 112
"Three rare birds show up in Rhode Island"
2. Litchfield, Marcia, 30 January 1979
Personal Communications, Massachusetts Audubon
Society. Lincoln, MA
3. New York Times, 26 November 1978, p. 62
"Rhode Island is Baffled as Rare Birds Appear"
4. New York Times, 3 December 1978, p. 26
"Rare Gull Excites Chicago Bird Watchers"
5. New York Times, 17 December 1978. p. 49
"Follow-Up-A Rare Bird"
6. Boston Globe. 17 November 1978, p. 3
"Predator and Prey"
7. Boston Globe, 30 December 1978. p. 13
"Bird Sightings"
8. Boston Globe, 3 February 1979, p. 12
"Bird Sightings"
9. South Middlesex News, 25 January 1979, p. 5A
"Rare Visitor"
to. Boston Globe. 6 January 1979, pp. 3,17
Boreal Owl Drops in on Salisbury"
11. Decatur (lL) Herald, 29 January 1967
"Rare Owl Found Here"
12. WICS-TV, Springfield.lL. 8 January 1971
~
News Program

11 YEARS IN PURSUIT
You'llfind this newly published
INDEX TO VOLUMES 1 - 11
a convenient key to reference reading
and investigative insight.
We are pleased to announce that a comprehensive Pursuit index has been compiled
by member George Eberhart. This index is an exhaustive listing of materials published
in Pursuit from 1967-1978 (Volumes 1-11). So complete is this index that it is 60 pages
long.
We had hoped to publish the index as a special issue free to current members. But
due to skyrocketing postal rates, and in order to cover handling and printing costs, we
are obliged to charge interested members a nominal fee. The price is $1.50. Members
who are interested in obtaining a copy ofthe 60-page index please send $1.50 to: SITU,
P.O. Box 265, Little Silver, NJ 07739.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

127

UFOS DOWN UNDER AND ALL OVER

by Jon Douglas Singer
the end of 1978, a new upsurge in interest
T OWARDS
about UFOs began to appear in the popular press.
Starting with a controversial sighting of a UFO in Central
Park, New York City, according to the New York Post,l
in November, reports began to mushroom around the
globe. Was this a new flap or wave of sightings comparable
to the one at the end of 1977? We shall see in this report.
We shall also examine a couple of spectacular abduction
cases, the more sinister of the so-called CE-III, (Close
Encounters of the Third Kind) phenomena, to borrow
the term developed by Prof. J. Allen Hynek for a meeting
between humans and "aliens" on the ground beside or
inside landed UFOs.
The Central Park case broke on November 2, 1978.
According to a brief anonymous article, "UFO Stops By
The Park," in the New York Post, some 50 or so people,
mostly workers in the Gulf and Western Building at Columbus Circle, saw a silvery circular object floating over
the park on the evening of November l. As New York
City UFO reports are comparatively rare, this report provoked a couple of days' worth of excitement. Channel 11
"Action News," on one of the local independent TV stations, broadcast a report on the object and showed a sketch
of a strange gyroscope-shaped object. The next night,
November 3, Channel 11 reporters from "Action News"
learned that an inventor from New Jersey named Robert
Young (no relation to the actor) had invented a kite with
a transparent string that was similar to the draWing of the
gyroscope-shaped object. It seemed that one mystery
had been shot down.
That was only an hors d'oeuvre. An even more startling
case, which could have been written by the late Rod
Sterling of "Twilight Zone" fame, took place in the tropical
skies over Australia. This event occurred Saturday, October 21, 1978, at about 7:00 p.m. It was dark but skilled
pilot Fred Valentich, age 20, was making a routine f1ighta simple training flight. Flying a Cessna 182 single-engine
plane that was in good condition, his flight plan would
take him from Melbourne to King Island, 130 miles or so
to the south.
Everything went well until Valentich noticed an odd
array of four lights that approached from the east. The
lights seemed to come from a vague elongated shape
which swooped in and maneuvered 1000 feet above him.
Valentich radioed to Melbourne, but the control tower
was unable to locate any nearby aircraft at his 4500 foot
altitude.
Valentich circled the odd object for a better view. and
to his surprise he found the object was also circling him!
According to news reports,2 Valentich's communications
became more panicky as he realized that he was confronting the unknown. The pilot now saw that the object
had two basic colors, a greenish light and a metallic-hued
light (Silvery? - J .S.). The intruder closed in on Valentich

and at 7:12 p.m. his last message described the UFO's

onrushing flight toward his plane .... Then there was a weird
metallic scraping noise followed by silence. 3
A report in FATE Magazine for February, 1979, stated
that search planes combing an area 13 miles north of
King Island found an oil slick, but that officials were certain that it wasn't from Valentich's plane. Also, a report in
the New York Daily Press 4 noted that searchers from the
Australian Department of Transport had found pieces of
metal 50 miles to the north, but that these were probably
not from the Cessna 182 either.
Valentich's father, Guio, insisted that while his son was
interested in UFOs as a hobby, he would not perpetrate
such a hoax. He was certain that his son had been kidnapped. S Australian government officials, after conducting
a thorough search, suggested that Valentich had probably mistaken the reflections of lights from lighthouses on
Cape Otway and King Island for something mysterious,
and added that it is also possible he became confused as
his plane aCcidentally turned upside down. Also, while
Valentich was a good pilot, he had made few night runs
and hadn't been to King Island before, the report noted,
adding that he had only been flying for 18 months and
was still in the process of completing his license requirements. Weather conditions were good. however, and
there is no reason why the pilot would suddenly foul up
and mistake lighthouse reflections for a bizarre UFO, let
alone turn upside down and not know it!
An article in the New York Post of October 27, 1978,6
reported that Valentich's girl friend, Rhonda Rushton, 16,
was certain the pilot was still alive and had landed somewhere in the course of a top secret mission. She also
thought he might be injured. These are only the surmises
of a teenage girl, so we needn't take them too seriously,
although we must sympathize with her. More interestingly,
the Post article noted that the Australian government.was
still stumped by the enigmatic incident, for the search
continued and the case was passed from the Rescue Coordination Center to the Transport Air Safety Investigation
branch of government. The implication, according to the
anonymous author of the story, was that the pilot was still
thought by government officials to be missing but alive.
The Valentich case produced no tangible results and
has now entered the course of ufological history. It was
not an isolated incident. Although no more abductions
were reported, the New York Daily Press revealed that
Ken Williams, spokesman for the Australian Transport
Department, had announced that his office had been receiving many UFO reports after the Valentich story broke.
Williams implied that the reports had been held up by
people who were at first reluctant to make them. Nevertheless, more detailed reports of other Australian UFOs
came from the City News 7 (the New York Daily Press
gave no details), which reported that UFOs had been
seen in two Melbourne suburbs. One area of sightings
occurred around Queenscliff and another sighting occurred
near Geelong, 35 miles southwest of Melbourne. A third
PURSUIT Summer 1979

128

area of sightings occurred near Bass Strait, over which

Valentich had been flying, according to a report in the
New York Daily Press. 8
The City News report stated that one of the witnesses
was a bank manager, Colin Morgan, who with his wife
saw a glowing star-shaped UFO hovering for nearly an
hour over their home town of Geelong. The craft passed
over them as they were driving down a highway. It had
flickering green lights, as did Valentich's craft, but no
shape was described by the man.
The Queenscliff UFO, Sighted by Mrs. Barbara Bishop,
consisted of a spectacular ferris wheel shape with two
concentric rows of lights spinning in an odd position in
the western sky at around 8:40 p.m., an hour or so after
Valentich had disappeared.
The City News also mentioned vague reports of UFOs
in the state of Victoria, and added that 11 reports had
been made to the Royal Australian Air Force. No details
of these other sightings were given, but it appears to me
what we have here is very possibly a "flap," as ufologists
call a wave of sightings at roughly the same time and date.
Interest in UFOs subsided for a while until suddenly,
around Christmas time, a new wave of sightings invaded
the major New York daily newspapers. The usually reserved New York Times was SUitably impressed by UFO
reports from Italy, and a mildly humorous article detailed
the antics over Italy, particularly over Palermo and Milan. 9
The article described in some detail the aerial antics of unknown objects which danced a cosmic tarantella over Italy's
sunny skies. The saucers. called OVNls ("oggetto volante
non identificato"), were doughnut-shaped, a significant
pOint to which I'll return in a moment. Typical craft had
red, green or white lights, and the objects themselves
apparently actually had circular holes in their midst.
The Times also reported that dozens of witnesses in reports from Rome and Salaria to the northwest, were startled
by the appearance of a mobile beam of green light that
wandered over the countryside. That was on Thursday,
December 14. On Tuesday, December 12, bank clerk
Nino Raffagnino actually photographed one of the weird
doughtnut-shaped objects; but unfortunately, while his
photographs were printed in the Italian papers, none was
published in the Times article. Palermo police also photographed UFOs, the resulting photos showing a long streak
of light. The carabinieri, Italy's famed national police force.
received reports of enigmatic aerial objects at Lecce,
where their local officers had Sighted UFOs. Additional
southern Italian sightings were reported from Brindisi.
The Times article notes that the sightings were reported
frantically for weeks, and the Communist paper in Rome.
the Paese Sera, even considered a daily column.
Events took a more sinister turn in the vicinity of the
Adriatic Sea near the city of Pescara. Not far from Pescara
is the fishing village of San Benedetto del Tronto, whose
peace was broken by the startling appearance of the
saucers. One clear night, two fishermen vanished and did
not return. After that, fishermen in the area refused to go
out at night. The Times article ended by referring, with
cryptic brevity, to theories about an "Adriatic Triangle."
where ships and men have. over many years or even
over many generations, vanished.
What is significant about the Times article is that doughnut shaped UFOs have been seen before. The most famous
were the Maury Island UFOs Sighted June 21, 1947, by
PURSUIT Summer 1979

Harold A. Dahl. Maury Island is in the vicinity of Tacoma.

Washington, and Dahl was piloting a harbor patrol boat.
Two crewmen and Dahl's son also saw no less than six
huge doughnut-shaped craft about 2000 feet overhead.
The objects were each about 100 feet in diameter, each
with central holes about 25 feet across. The objects' color,
as seen under daylight conditions, was a mixture of gold
and silver. The saucers made no sound. The case is reported in Brinsley Le Poer Trench's Secret of the Ages. 10
Although Dahl photographed the flying doughnuts, pictures did not come out on the film which was spoiled by
mysterious spots.
What is even more interesting about these doughnutshaped craft, if they are craft, is that another was seen at
a much later date, right over Union Square near 14th
Street in the heart of Manhattan. This particular UFO was
seen by Warren Siegmond and Miss Jeannine Bouillier
of the French Government Tourist Office. They were taking
photographs when, according to Trench (p. 168), Miss
Bouillier noticed that there was a huge circular thing radiating a brilliant light. It was silent, without wings, tail or
markings. The object was photographed and reported on
in the World Telegram, and a wire service photo was sent
around the world.
A third doughnut-shaped craft was described by Trench,
in Secret of the Ages (pp. 168-9). On September 21,
1961, two Boeing 707s, one a BOAC plane and one a
Pan American airliner flying near each other, saw a doughnut-shaped, enigmatic craft as they flew over the Pacific!
The December 17 Italian flap faded from view, and for
a while the New York news media lost interest in UFOs.
Then. on New Year's Day, 1979, the sightings returned,
breaking upon the press like a great wave that had receded and had now rushed back again. Once again it
began in Australia and New Zealand. Three months had
passed since Valentich had vanished when. on January 1,
civilian radar operators at Wellington. New Zealand,
detected mysterious blips of unknown origin. On that
same day, pilot Bill Startup of a Melbourne. Australia,
TV news production unit, was sent with a film crew to
hunt for UFOs over the area of Kaikoura, New Zealand.
where the radar blips clustered like fireflies. Quentin
Fogarty. the chief reporter, spotted a UFO with a bright,
whitish glow at 11:35 p.m .. 10 minutes after the film
crew had left Melbourne. It was doubtful they were observing an optical illusion, since the UFO was suddenly
joined by four or five others. including one that was diskshaped, according to the New York Post. II
The Post also reported that four policemen near Brisbane, Australia. watched a UFO for two and a half hours.
The Royal New Zealand Air Force regarded the reports
so seriously that they even scrambled Sky hawk jet fighters
to search for the UFOs. Civilian air controllers also reported they had tracked dozens of radar blips of enigmatic
origin; and visual sightings had been logged by six pilots
on three planes during a ten-day period as well. hinting
at yet another flap. Incidentally, the photographs of the
UFOs were published in both the Post and the Daily News
January 2,12 and both newspapers published interviews
with the pilot, Bill Startup, who flew the four-engine turboprop plane that was rented by Fogarty's news team. Pilot
Startup said they first Sighted the UFO when it was 20
miles from them, over Kaikoura near Davis Strait adjacent
to South Island, while they were retracing the route taken

129

by mysterious blips first tracked a few days earlier. on

December 21, 1978, near Cook Strait. The plane flew as
close as 10 miles to the UFO. flying above them and then
swooping under them, circling them. The Post went into
more detail, reporting that four or five UFOs, including
an egg-shaped one with white lights moving around it.
and the saucer-shaped UFO mentioned earlier (which
had a dome atop it in the classic style). joined the firSt UFO.
The skeptics had their say as well. The story was reported January 2 on CBS-TV's "Evening News" by anchorman Walter Cronkite, who said an interview with Australian
astronomer David Navin indicated the object seen could
have been Venus. That explanation, however, does not
explain the fact that four or so objects. including the one
with a dome, were seen-but then who can explain why
Venus is so often 'accused' of being the culprit in UFO
sightings, even when it is astronomically impossible!
Similar sceptical opinions were voiced by New Zealand
Air Force pilot Ray Curran, who said that the lights and
blips may have been caused by misidentified night lights
used by Japanese fishermen, whose boats are common
in those waters. 13 Do Japanese fishermen use domed
disks and egg-shaped boats with rotating lights?
As though unsatisfied with their mixed reviews. the
UFOs returned, and a second film was taken of strange
objects maneuvering over the lands down under, this
time on the morning of January 3, 1979. The Australian
reported that six policemen in a town 500 miles distant
from the TV cameras which filmed a UFO had reported
a similar object to the one shown in the film. The new
UFO was described as being shaped like a volcano. It was
triangular, with a notch at the apex, according to the
film crew's sound recorder, Lloyd McFadden. What
appeared on the film, however, was a glowing ball with
a reddish center. The film was taken near the Clarence
River in South Island, near the northern part of that island.
A photograph of the object appeared in the January 2.
1979 New York Post. 14
This new wave of UFO sightings was reinforced by
reports from all over the world as interest in UFOs increased
dramatically. Although it seemed that a world-wide flap
was on, UFO reports coming from a remote area might,
when reported Simultaneously by a number of witnesses,
seem to be part of a pattern to these sightings and suggest
that the UFO appearances are coordinated. We can't
really say that without more proof, of course. The UFOs
might come from several separate sources simultaneously.
For example, while the Australian-New Zealand flap
was under way. the New York Post reported that UFOs
were seen in Ferrara, Italy, on New Year's Eve. However, as the article noted that the witnesses had been
returning from a party, it is perhaps a case of misidentification. The new Italian UFO consisted of a bright oval
which moved slowly and left a dense white tail. Trails left
by UFOs are rather rare and may be clues to their propulsion.
More detailed reports of UFOs have come from Israel,
South Africa. New Jersey. and from near Nashville, Tennessee. These were summarized by the January 5, 1979
New York Post, IS which said that police and civilians had
sighted craft of unknown origin that zoomed and zigzagged
over the skies of Jerusalem and Haifa, Israel. An earlier
Post article, dated January 4, said that the UFOs over
Jerusalem were three in number and were apparently of

diamond-like shape, colored red, blue, and purple. These

were seen in daylight and sparkled, and were reported as
being about the size of "flashlights. "16
From South Africa came a fascinating Close Encountertype case. The event took place outside the city of Johannesburg. Although the exact date of the sighting isn't
given in the New York Post article.17 we can infer that it
occurred some time around the period of January 1-5.
Mrs. Meagan Quezet and her 12-year-old son Andre insisted that they came across a landed grayish, egg-shaped
UFO from which "ufonauts" emerged. The exact number
of the ufonauts isn't given, but Mrs. Meagan said that
they had a leader who not only bowed but was even charismatic! Also, the crew all wore pinkish uniforms. The
leader attempted to speak to Mrs. Meagan, but she was
unable to understand what was being said. The aliens
then re-entered their craft, which left, making a purring
noise as it rose into the starry night.
The cosmic spotlight then seemed to shift toward the
U.S. In Tennessee, near Nashville, Lt. Robert Ezell reported that his colleagues on the local police force had
witnessed alleged UFOs whizzing over the highways.
Those UFOs had white lights on their tops and flashing
red lights in the center of each of the round objects. IS
New Jersey got most of the attention. It seemed that a
minor flap was under way. Sightings seemed to cluster in
southern New Jersey, over Brick Township and Barnegat
Bay.19 Although the objects failed to appear on radar
screens at the Lakehurst Naval Engineering Center and at
McGuire Air Force Base, policemen from Brick Township
saw a balloon-shaped UFO with running lights (color not
given).
The Daily News of Friday, January 5, 1979 reported
that, on Wednesday of that week, Lt. Joseph DeAngelo
saw a white circle of light with blue lights at each end. It
hovered and left.20 (The New York Post of January 4
stated that the UFO appeared around 7:40 p.m.) Joseph
Frank, reported as an animal control officer, along with
his brother Nick and wife Anna, as well as his father,
Joseph Sr .. saw a blimp-sized, rectangular object that
was brightly lit by an unspecified color. The article also
mentioned that SITU's preSident, Bob Warth, categorized
the Barnegat Bay sightings as a Close Encounter of the
Second Kind, which, according to the terminology of
Prof. J. Allen Hynek, represents a prolonged sighting of
a UFO which hovers close to the ground without landing.
On January 4, 1979, at 7:55 p.m., Channeill's "Action News" reported another CE-II which occurred at New
Milford, New Jersey. Rev. Charles Rizzo saw a disk with
red and green lights approach his house before it took off
into the night. "Action News" reported on January 5 that
some of the New Jersey UFOs may have been caused by
misidentified sightings of aircraft of a Farmingdale, Long
Island aircraft company which was conducting night flights
in that region of New Jersey. That plane, however, did
not have blue running lights, so the reports of blue lights
on unknown aerial objects should remain classified as
enigmatic cases that have yet to be explained.
Two other reports originated from Secaucus and from
Jersey City, both New Jersey. The Jersey Journal of Saturday, January 6, 1979 reported that Joan Hubert, a
secretary for the Secaucus Board of Health, was driving
on Central Avenue in Secaucus at about 6:45 p.m. when
she saw a red disk with a serrated rim flying past the Elms
PURSUIT Summer 1979

130
BUilding. Her daughter Kerry also saw it. Although the
article added that a similar object was sighted over Jersey
City, no additional details were given. It appears that in
the New York metropolitan area, the UFOs suddenly
faded from the news as rapidly as they had swept onto
the front pages and screens. The wave, which had rushed
forward from the shadows, once again had receded.
Was the 1978-79 flap over, or had it only subsided for
awhile?
Whatever the truth may be behind the current wave of
UFO sightings, a few points should be brought up which
may present clues to our persistent cosmic mystery.
First, the December-January Flap began only a few
months after Valentich disappeared in a bizarre fashion.
The fact that the wave began in Australia and New Zealand may be of added significance.
Second. the wave of sightings began as NASA's spaceprobes were approaching Jupiter and other probes had
already landed on Venus.
Third, these sightings came almost precisely on the
anniversary of previous UFO sightings in New York State,
Pennsylvania. and New Jersey's shore area which ocurred a year earlier in conjunction with those enigmatic
high-atmosphere booms called "skyquakes." (None of
those anomalous supersonic booms were reported in
conjunction with these UFO sightings, however.)
Fourth, the New York Daily Metro of September 24,
1978 reported that Takeshi Urata, an amateur Japanese
astronomer, had discovered a new asteroid which he
named "Mizuho" after his daughter. 22
Fifth, the New York Times of December 24, 1978,
reported that scientists from Western Washington University had built a device which could carry messages on
previously elusive neutrino beams directly through the
earth, an hitherto difficult task. Dr. Peter Kotzer felt that
the neutrino beams could ultimately be used in a worldwide communication network. He added that he felt extraterrestrial civilizations, if they exist, may have already
used such beams, and that if radio astronomers failed to
detect intelligent radio signals from space, perhaps they
could use the neutrino beams. Indeed, he even suggested
that neutrino beams carrying messages from various extraterrestrial civilizations could already be passing, by chance,
through the earth and that we could eavesdrop on those
conversations. 23
Lastly, it should be pOinted out that Barnegat Bay,
New Jersey, is no stranger to Fortean phenomena. In
their fascinating book, The Jersey DelJil,24 James F. McCloy and Ray Miller, Jr., describe a strange man-sized,
bat-winged, flying creature that supposedly haunts the
remoter regions of New Jersey's rural districts. The creature,
whose existence is as hotly debated by New Jersey savants
as is the UFO enigma, has been Sighted from the early
1700s onward right up to the mid-Twentieth century.
Commodore Stephen Decatur, the great naval hero, is
said to have not only see the creature over Barnegat Bay
but, since he was testing cannon balls at the time, he was
able to fire a few shots at the airborne monstrosity. Decatur

failed to bring down the creature in what might be said

to have been the U.S. Navy's first clash with a flying enemy. It is also said that Captain Kidd, who came to the
area, supposedly saw the creature. Whether there is any
relation between the Jersey Devil and the UFOs recently
sighted in the same area is anybody's guess, but John
Keel has pOinted out in The Mothman Prophecies2~ how
he recorded hundreds of reports of a similar creature
that appeared in West Virginia in 1967 during a wave of
UFO sightings in that state.
Although the present UFO wave represents a story
with a beginning and a middle, we will have to wait and
see if there is to be an ending ....

REFERENCES
1. New York Post. Thursday, November 2, 1978, p. 15, "UFO
Stops By The Park."
2. For an account of the Valentich Incident. see New York
Daily Press, Wednesday, October 25. 1978, p. 4, "Hunt Pilot
Who Called In UFO."
3. Fate Magazine, February, 1979. p. 32, "It isn't an Aircraft,"
by Curtis Fuller.
4. op. cit. p. 4.
5. City News. (New York), Wednesday. October 25, 1978,
p. 2. "Dad Fears UFO Raiders Kidnapped Pilot," p. 2.
6. New York Post, Friday, October 27. 1978. "Swept Away
by UFO? No, Says Flier's Girl."
7. op. cit, p. 2.
8. op. cit, p. 4.
9. New York Times, Sunday, December 17, 1978, Section 1,
p.13.
10. New York, Pinnacle Books, Inc., 1974, pp. 162-7.
11. New York Post, January 2, 1979. p. 5, "New Zealanders
Are in a Spin Over Flying Saucer Sightings."
12. Daily News. January 2, 1979, p. 4, "New Zealand on Alert
Over Reports of a UFO."
13. New York Post. op. cit.
14. New York Post. January 2. 1979, op. cit.
15. New York Post, Friday, January 5, 1979. "UFOs, UFOs,
Everywhere."
16. New York Post, Thursday. January 4, 1979. p. 11. "Jersey
UFO Upstages New Zealand."
17. New York Post, Friday, January 5, 1979, op. cit.
18. ibid.
19. ibid.
20. Daily News, Friday, January 5, 1979, "UFO? Jersey Cop
Saw Circle of Light in Sky."
21. New York Post, January 4. 1979, op. cit.
22. New York Daily Metro. Sunday. September 24. 1978,
"New Asteroid Discovered."
23. New York Times, Sunday, December 24, 1978, Section 1,
p. 1, "Scientists Forecasting Beam Through Earth 10 Transmit
Messages," by Malcolm W. Browne.
24. Wallingford, Pennsylvania, The Middle Atlantic Press, 1976.
25. New York, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1975.

PLANNING A MOVE SOON? If you expect to change your address please allow at least six weeks for address change to
become effective in our records. Send card showing both old and new address to SITU Membership Services, RFD 5, Gales
Ferry, CT 06335. If new address is an apartment be sure to include apartment number in addition to street address, city, state
and ZIP.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

131

SYMPOSIUM
Comments and Opinions
IMPORTANT NOTICE
TO ALL CONCERNED

SITU MEMBERSHIP
DIRECTORY UPDATE

This notice is to the Society's Scientific Advisors

and Honorary Members, as well as members currently involved in significant research projects or
who for some other reason are felt to be capable of
contributing to the Society's goals.
Please send photocopies and/or re-written word
of new developments and research pertinent to the
further growth of SITU. These letters, notes, memos,
and information packets can be added to almost
any part of Pursuit so that new findings and developments will be brought to the immediate attention of our members. We will reprint from other
journals and magazines by permission; print as an
original article if written by the member sending it in
(or as a brief re-written piece); or at the very least
publish the information in our SITUations section
(crediting the member who sends it to us, of course).
If you can, please assist us in this endeavor. It is
the goal of the present editors of Pursuit to produce
a journal of high quality reporting which covers as
many of the numerous and exciting new developments pertinent to the field as we possibly can.
We believe, as Ivan Sanderson did. that science
is truly the pursuit of the unknown.

The SITU Membership Directory Update addenda and

errata are herewith presented. (Interested members not
familiar with the Directory should see Volume 11, Number 4 for coding and instructions).
The next complete listing will be an all-inclusive one
to be updated early in 1980. The service can only be extended to members who have renewed in time to be
included. The cut-off date will be October 1, 1979. A paidup member will not be removed from the directory unless
we are so notified.
All matters pertaining to the directory should be addressed to:
SITU Membership Directory
c/o Martin Wiegler
694 Stuyvesant Avenue
Irvington, NJ 07111
USA
UPDATED CODING OF MEMBERS'
AREAS OF INTEREST
Anthropology ....................................... AH
Falling or phantom animals ............................ FA
Psychiatric makeup of Fortean observers or contactees ..... PS

MEMBERS AND THEIR INTERESTS

PAYMENT FOR PURSUIT ARTICLES
Starting with this issue, Summer, 1979 (Vol. 12, No.3)
Pursuit will pay 1(: per word for all articles published.
Please feel free to submit articles for consideration for
publication. Payment will be forthcoming upon publication
of the article. Also, payment will not be considered for
articles already published elsewhere and reprinted in
Pursuit, or for items used in the journal's SITUations or
Symposium columns. Copyright rights for original articles
published will still be returned to the authors upon publication as we have done in the past.

. ..

PLEA FOR BOOK REVIEWS

SITU needs book reviews! Writers of book reviews will
receive $5 per review published. We'll publish your review
if it's well written and a thoughtful assessment of the book's
worth (assuming the book is worth reviewing in the first
place!).

...

Member number 3153 has his own Bigfoot organization

and would like to hear from interested members. Illinois
BIGFOOT Center, 1660 Prospect Avenue, Lasalle, IL
61301.

(New Entries)

Member
No.
State

ZIP

3039 CA
90503
3078 CO
81037
210 MA
02138
2741 MN
55374
2610 (corr.) MN 56248
2503 NJ
08096
1976 NY
14615
3070 OH
43618
6025 WY
82071
1692 B.C., Canada
2714 England

Interests

U.L
AM, U, AN, E, R, X
G, M, X, FA, PS, AH, Z
AG, C, H, PM, SK
U,T,E
F. L. M, UA, X
AA, AP, AT, C, lA, L, M, H
U,X,L5
D,H,U,V,X,Y
U

G. U, M, F, H, 0,
R (corr.), IT

Current Pursuits: Wanted: Information on erratic zoological specimens (great gray owls to alligators). Also, specific
data on the locations and associated folklore for (1) Fortean places with "devil" names, (2) walled structures such
as Fort Ancient, Ohio, and (3) mounds. Please send
ideas, clippings, references to: Loren Coleman, 115
Chilton Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, telephone 617354-7412. I will appreciate your assistance, and reward
you with a Fortean surprise envelope of news items.
PURSUIT Summer 1979

132

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

You lower the high standards of your journal by publishing so naive a tirade as Dr. Lorenzoni's "The Psychoanalysis Wangle" (Pursuit, Vol. 11, No.4). No educated
person today has the blind faith in Freud's teachings which
Lorenzoni presupposes, nor can an unquestioning adoption
of his belief-system be regarded as one of the initiation
rites required of an aspirant to the scientific establishment.
I personally have a profound distrust of psycho-analysis, and little doubt that Freud was frequently mistaken
in his interpretations. But this does not prevent me from
recognizing him as one of the most fruitful thinkers of the
past hundred years. Indeed I question whether SITU
would exist, or Lorenzoni feel able to write as he does,
had not Freud gone before to clear the way with his bulldozing iconoclasm.
Just forty years.ago, on the occasion of Freud's death,
Auden wrote:
If often he was wrong and at times absurd,
To us he is no more a person
Now, but a whole climate of opinion,
Under whom we conduct our differing lives.
Lorenzoni blames Freud because the mass media have
labeled him 'the discoverer of the unconscious' -but
since when have SITU members relied on the mass media
for their information? Such reasoning is on a level with his
childish name-calling ('squalid individual', 'Freud and his
gang') which is, ironically, characteristic of that classic
father-rejection which Freud himself identified!
With a bravado typical of that Freudian pattern, Lorenzoni claims to have 'demolished' Freud as he formerly
demolished Einstein and Darwin. Setting aside so ludicrous a boast, let us consider his suggestion that such
demolition work is an important part of the true Fortean's
task. As every Fortean knows, the Master's method was
to proceed by constr.uction, not de-. He would propose
a notion such as his Super-Sargasso Sea and use it as
a working hypothesis until a better hypothesis should
replace it. Similarly, Darwin, Einstein and Freud offered
us working hypotheses. Time is already starting to replace them, but that is no reason to belittle their achievement. They may not have attained the heights of ultimate
truth, but it is by standing on their shoulders that we who
follow can hope to scale those heights.
-Hilary Evans
England
This area was about in the center of an unexplained
sonic phenomenon the night of January 8, 1979. That
was a bad night, weather-wise: very cold with a freezing
rain falling, shrouding the countryside in a sheath of ice
that knocked out power lines, broke a myriad tree branches,
etc., so few people were outdoors.
About 9:30, people here, and in dozens of other communities over south-central Kentucky and north-central
Tennessee heard a very loud boom or crash or roar.
Some (most) thought it was a powerful sonic boom created
by an aircraft breaking the sound barrier. However, both
civil and military aeronautic authorities later denied any
such event occurred with any known aircraft.
Other folks figured there had been a huge explosion,
PURSUIT Summer 1979

but none had taken place. A few people, who chanced to

be looking out of their windows at the time of the boom,
saw a brilliant red flare or flash low in the sky. These
folks thought a low-flying aircraft had exploded in a brilliant
blast. However, no aircraft [was reported) missing, and
no trace of any explosion, or wreckage, to be found on
the ground anywhere.
I myself heard the sound, though did not see the flare.
It was a rather unusual noise-a roar and boom and
crash and whine and vibration all combined. As I've mentioned, a heavy ice storm was in progress, and my first
thought was that the ice accumulation had toppled a large
dead tree near my residence (at that time I thought it strictly
local and had no idea it had been audible over such a
huge area), but at dawn I saw the ice-sheathed tree standing.
A similar sound was heard by me, and a few others
locally though I do not know if it was reported elsewhere,
on the night of January 20. I was sitting up late, reading,
and at about 1:30 a.m. I heard this second boom-crashroar-whine-grind-vibration. It was quite loud, and I distinctly felt a slight quiver of the old farmhouse I inhabit.
While no seismograph reported any earth activity in this
portion of the nation on that date, I wonder! About 12
years ago, an earthquake did shake this area, and it was
accompanied by a sound very similar to these latest.
-Member 11380
Scottsville, Kentucky

I am member 755, and you are probably member 34,

697 or 304l.
These numbers, as Ivan once told me, are to protect
our privacy as SITUians.
To those of you who haven't heard, everybody knows
about UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, and Uri Geller.
So who are we protected from by using these dandy
membership numbers? People who most likely wouldn't
even care that we massage a secret hanker for frog falls or
ten-penny nails nestling inside rocks, mainly because
rocks pelting a chicken coop from the Super-Sargasso
Sea and things that go thump in the night are not that
mind-wrenching compared to Von Daniken's speculations.
The professors who should fear for their jobs don't use
the SITU membership number; their names are right out
there on the Pursuit masthead-complete with an address-something that strikes me as a dopey way of preserving their confidentiality. Perhaps prima donnas don't
sweat reprisal. but a 35-year-old math teacher is not so
sure of his paycheck and so wants the lid kept on.
Then does the membership code number help writers?
No. You reach them through their publisher's customer
service desk. Or look them up in the book.
So if the membership number doesn't help people with
reputations to protect, or keep nuisance letters from
writers, it must be to protect all us less distinguished aficionadoes of the Bizarre. The Forteans I know are constantly
making new contacts and meeting on their own. Some
even write in and beg to have their name and address
printed with a request to hear from other SITUians.

133

I do not suggest that Pursuit undertake the mammoth

project of publishing all our names and addresses, no, no.
I merely point out that since the numbers are not used in
the Pursuit articles, and since the numbers are not used
by the academics or writers to preserve their identity as
Closet Forteans, what good is the membership number
system?

Back in '71 Ivan told me he was in British Intelligence

during WWII. He was assigned a number then, but the
War's over.
Spread the word.
Confidentially yours,
Mr. X

aka #755

SITUATIONS
This section of our journal is dedicated to the reporting of curious and unexplained elJents. Members
are encouraged to send in newsclippings and responsible reports they feel should be included here.
Remember, local newspapers often offer the best (or only) information concerning some elJents.
Please be sure to include the source of reference (name of newspaper, periodical, etc.), the date the
article appeared and your membership number (or name, if you prefer to be credited that way).

NEW NESSIE FILMS?

A British TV cameraman, driving along
the Scottish loch with plans to do a film
on forestry, instantly changed his plans
when he found the "monster" instead.
"It had a round head rather like that of
a seal," said the cameraman, Peter Leddy,
who claims to have filmed the fast-moving creature from about a half mile away.
"The head was visible for so long that I
was able to make several lens changes."
The film was sent (so they say) to the
British Broadcasting Corp. for processing.
SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, April 4, 1979
CREDIT: Sabina Sanderson

IGUANA FOUND ON

DESERTED ISLE

CALLED 'LINK' IN
ANIMAL MIGRATION
Dr. John Gibbins, a British scientist,
claims that a newly discovered, 3-footlong iguana he found on a deserted island
in Fiji is the "missing link" indicating how
animals got from South America to the
South Pacific.
Gibbons said that the iguana is similar
to South American species with a crested
back and extraordinary color change
powers. The scientist feels that the find
indicates that iguanas floated to the Fiji
islands on rafts of vegetation washed out
to sea millions of years ago.
SOURCE: The Tennessean
CREDIT: Member #380

MYSTERIOUS RINGS
IN SAUDI ARABIA
BEING STUDIED
Puzzling Circular stone formations are
scattered on remote hilltops and in valleys
throughout Saudi Arabia, reminiscent of
those found in Europe. The "mysterious
rings" are formed by stone walls one to

two feet tall and range from 15 to 100

yards in diameter.
Archaeologists have noted that many
of the rings have "tails," appendages
that stretch out for hundreds of yards
across the wilderness.
Thanks to the Saudis, who opened their
doors to foreign archaeologists, American
and European experts have been conducting general surveys of the country's
potential archaeological sites. The Arabian desert has been Virtually untouched
for centuries.
"This country is a gold mine of archeological treasures," said one archeologist.
"The desert is covered with inscribed
stones and artifacts. All you have to do is
bend over and pick them up."
When viewed from the air, the stone
rings bear a marked Similarity to huge
circles etched into the Nazca Plain in
western Peru.
SOURCE: Euening Journal (Wilmington. Delaware). December 29, 1978
CREDIT: Member "659

AnANTIS-HAVE
THE RUSSIANS FOUND IT?
Dr. Andrei Aksenov, deputy director of
the Soviet Academy's Institute of Oceanography, said that scientists aboard a
survey ship 200-300 miles west of Portugal have taken eight underwater photographs that show a horshoe-shaped
group of flattop mountains and "vestiges
of walls and great stairways."
Aksenov told reporters that Soviet
oceanographers believe it could be the
ruins of Atlantis. "Yes, the Soviet oceanographers believe it could be true, considering ocean-floor tectonics. The geologists think it quite possible that this horseshoe was a rather large archipelago that
submerged as a result of geological unrest," he said.
Aksenov said the photographs would
be made public in Moscow, but that more

investigations would be necessary before

any conclusions could be reached.
The scientist is currently on a second
expedition to the site, and added that
oceanologists have equipment that is a
seH-contained submersible research station.
Researchers in such a "microboat" can
move sideways, up and down and can
examine the underwater landscape.
SOURCES: The Nashuille Tennessean, April 3,
1979; HeraldNews (NJ), March 29, 1979
CREDIT: Fred Wilson and Member #380

MAN WALKED
3 MILLION YEARS AGO
Dr. Mary Leakey, noted anthropologist,
recently discovered, in East Africa, humanlike footprints in hardened volcanic ash.
The footprints are the first concrete proof
that man's ancestors walked upright more
than 3 million years ago!
At a National Geographic SOCiety news
briefing, Dr. Leakey stated that fossil
remains of 22 individuals did not indicate
large heads, there was no evidence of
tools at the site, and therefore the prints
seemed to indicate that walking upright
preceded development of a large brain
and toolmaking. "The finds are of greatest
importance in the picture of human evolution, " she said. "They establish that
man reached bipedal, free-striding gait
(upright walking) much earlier than was
known for certain. "
SOURCE: HeraldNews (NJ), March 22, 1979
CREDIT: Fred Wilson

MYSTERIOUS MARINE
MAMMAL STRANDINGS
During the first week of 1979, fifty-six
sperm whales beached themselves and
died near the Baja California town of
Mulege. The accompanying photo shows
some of the ocean-going mammals as
PURSUIT Summer 1979

134

'!'..

January 8. 1979. Scientists from the United States and Mexico examine some of the 56 sperm whales that beached
themselves and died near the Baja California town of Mulege. Los Angeles Times photo by Bill Varie.
well as some of the scientists from the
U.S. and Mexico who went to examine
the creatures.
The phenomenon is not unique; each
year whales and their smaller relatives the
dolphins are found dead or dying from
strandings on beaches around the world.
The numbers involved, as well as the circumstances involving the beachings,
however, are still confusing to scientists
seeking an explanation for the phenomenon.
A mysterious series of such events
occurred during a two-week period in
July, 1976 in Florida. It began when
residents living near Siesta and Casey
Keys, small barrier islands along the
southwest coast of Florida near the town
of Sarasota, heard strange sounds the
night of July 13. About 10 p.m., residents reported hearing high-pitched
sounds, almost like bird cries. Looking
toward the ocean they saw between fifty
to a hundred dolphins, each about six
feet long and weighing about 150 pounds,
heading for the beach.
All night long the residents, assisted by
officers of the Florida Marine Patrol and
representatives of the National Marine

Fisheries Service, attempted to turn the

animals back to sea. Despite all the efforts
made by hand or motorboat, twenty-five
of the mammals died.
Dr. James Mead, curator of marine
mammals at the Smithsonian Institution,
who has studied over a hundred mass
beachings of whales and dolphins, was
summoned to the scene. He noted that
the dolphins, identified as Stenella longi
rostris, are deep water mammals that
usually stay at least ten miles from shore,
are somewhat different in appearance
and are slightly smaller than the Atlantic
bottlenose dolphin or porpoise. Their
sudden appearance on the Florida gulf
coast beach was a rare event, according
to Dr. Mead. This was the first mass
stranding of this particular species to be
brought to his attention.
Under Dr. Mead's direction, the dead
dolphins were taken to nearby Mote
Marine Laboratory on the southern tip of
Siesta Key. After spending two days performing autopsies on the dead mammals,
the researchers-including Dr. Mead; Ed
Aspar, curator of mammals and birds at
Sea World of Florida, and other researchers from that marine attraction near

Orlando; Dr. Daniel Odell from the Rosenthiel School of Marine and Atmospheric
Science at the University of Miami; Drs.
Robert Schimpff and Nicholas Hall,
neuroscientists from the University of
Florida, and Carroll Woodard, veterinary
pathologist, also from the University of
Florida-could find no apparent cause
for the beaching.
Earlier work by Dr. Mead had shown
that the pilot whale, a related species,
plays host to a parasitic worm which infests the middle ear sinuses, the brain and
the central nervous system. This causes
extensive damage by impairing the animal's echolocation system and foodfinding capabilities, which sometimes
causes the mammal to become disoriented
and to head for shore, followed by the
others in the group. Although he felt this
might be the case with the dolphin beach
ing on Siesta and Casey Keys, the autop
sies showed no such clear-cut conclu
sion was possible.
According to Ed Aspar, "Mentally those
animals had died. But as far as their necropsies went, those animals looked very,
very good." He was referring to two survivors who were brought to the lab but

PURSUIT Summer 1979

~--------------------------------------.--

__. -

135
were found to have lost their "sonar" capability. As a result, they would swim into
the walls of the natural pen. After being
kept there 24 hours for observation, they
were taken to Sea World for further tests.
They died a short time later. The animals,
although seemingly healthy, were suffering
from what Aspar termed a "stranding
shock syndrome," and they were unable
to recover from it.
Nine days later, July 22, another marine mammal stranding occurred approximately 50 miles further south. Five
whales, at first thought to be pilot whales
and later identified by Ed Aspar as Pseu
dorcus (false killer whales, a porpoiselike mammal 13 to 16 feet long, weighing
1,000 to 2,000 pounds, and very rare on
Florida's gulf coast), had beached themselves on sandbars in Pine Island Sound
near Upper Captiva Island in the Fort
Meyers area. Dr. Odell again performed
an autopsy on one of the whales which
had died. His report indicated there was
no food substance in the stomach or
intestines and that those organs showed
the presence of a type of parasite. Preliminary findings, he indicated, were
similar to those of the Casey Key dolphins. The other four whales were taken
to Sea World for observation, where it
was noted that lung worm infestation was
also present. All four mammals subsequently died.
Just three days later, 24 false killer
whales were found stranded on Loggerhead Key. a small island in the Dry Tortugas, about 65 miles west of Key West.
This time rescue workers managed to
head all but one back to sea and scientists were able to secure the brain of the
dead whale within two hours after death.
Although hundreds of inch-long parasitic worms were found in the ear canals
of the Loggerhead Key casualty, Dr.
Odell, who spoke with SITU representatives in February, 1979, feels there was
not sufficient organic damage to have
caused the whale to become disoriented
enough to head for shore.
No one really knows what causes the
dolphins and their whale cousins to strand
themselves on land. A report issued by
the health center at the University of
Florida in January, 1977, indicates no
evidence of brain disorders or parasitic
infestation in the Casey Key dolphins
which would account for the stranding.
Those findings agree with those of Ed
Aspar, who believes the stranding occurred because the dolphins came too close
to shore, perhaps following food sources
which were depleted in their normal environment. thus causing them to search
in a wider range. The long sloping continental shelf on the gulf coast might have
confused them. by tending to absorb the
sound. "If they don't get a feedback.
there is a good possibility that their im-

pression is that there is deep water ahead."

Aspar noted.
Aspar also related that in attempting to
get the whales off the beach and into the
water at Loggerhead Key, all efforts aimed
at selecting the five largest bull whales
and st~rting them out in deep water one
at a time failed, until all five were headed
out. As long as even one of their group
remained the others stayed in the area.
Dr. Perry W. Gilbert. director of the
Mote Marine Laboratory, feels that this
theory was disproved during a prior pilot
whale beaching on Boca Grande on
August 20, 1971. "In that stranding the
large bull whales remained offshore while
the smaller members of the herd beached
themselves." he said.
While parasitic infestations and other
organic causes may have contributed to
the whale strandings, and whether all the
whales were affected or only a few with
the rest following along will probably
never be known; and the question is still
open as to why or how the Casey Key
dolphins, which showed no such organic
illness to account for the stranding there,
became disoriented due to finding themselves in shallow waters.
We have learned a lot about dolphins
and their marine cousins over the years.
We know, for example, that more than
30 species of dolphins can be identified
as belonging to the suborder Odontoceti,
or toothed whales. of the suborder Ceta
cea. They evolved over 50 million years.
ago from land mammals that may have
resembled the even-toed ungulates of
today such as cattle, pigs and buffalo.
Ocean species sometimes congregate in
groups of several thousand, reminiscent
of buffalo herds in North America. Kenneth S. Norris and Thomas P. Dohl of the
University of California at Santa Cruz
have suggested that dolphins may form
close groups while they are resting in
order to utilize the combined sensory
abilities of all the individuals in the group
to scan the environment for potential
danger. (Dolphins, like bats. emit highfrequency sounds in short pulses. The
sounds bounce off objects and the echoes
return information concerning the size,
shape, distance and even the texture of
the objects.) In a closely organized school,
each individual can hear the echo-location
sounds made by other members of the
group. Even though an individual member might not make many sounds, much
information about the environment would
nevertheless be rapidly and efficiently disseminated to all members.
It is also possible that a resting group
swims close to shore in order to be in
shallow water not frequented by deep
water sharks.
As to why marine mammals should
choose to strand themselves upon the
beaches of our world, however. we know

very little. Whether the mystery occurs in

Baja California or southwest Florida, we
have come no closer to solVing it than
Aristotle, who wrote concerning marine
mammals over 2300 years ago: "It is not
known for what reason they run themselves aground on dry land; at all events,
it is said they do so at times, and for no
obvious reason. "
SOURCE: The information included above
has been extracted from an article in Museum.
Vol. 9. No.7, February 1978 (published by
the Museum of Science. Inc . Miami. Florida)
entitled "Mystery of the Beached Mammals;"
by Thomas M. Leahy;and from an article entitled "Dolphins," by Bernard Wiirsig. in Sci
entific American. Vol. 24, No.3. March, 1979.

DUST STORM RAINS

DOWN ON SOVIET GEORGIA
According to the press agency Tass, widespread heavy dust fell like rain over Soviet Georgia during the first week of April,
1979. According to the experts, hot air
currents over Iran, Turkey and North
Africa swept up tens of thousands of tons
of dust into the atmosphere and deposited
it as a dust storm over the Transcaucuses.
SOURCE: The New York TImes, April 8, 1979
CREDIT: Steve Mayne

MONSTER LIVING IN
SIBERIAN LAKE
Geologists. hunters and Siberian natives
have all reported sightings of a snakeheaded. animal-eating creature, said to
inhabit the frigid waters of Lake Labinkir
in the Siberian province of Yakutia, 250
miles north of the Soviet eastern coast.
The creature, well-known to local residents, has enjoyed wider attention, thanks
to a best-selling book about Siberia, "The
Oymyakonsky Meridian," by Soviet journalist Anatoly Pankov. Pankov said the
first trustworthy sighting of the creature
came in the 1950s when a group of geologists saw, rising from the surface of the
lake. a long-necked creature with a snakelike head. The creature glided about and
made a sound "like a child's cry" before
it disappeared into the 150-foot-deep
waters.
Other geologists, while walking on ice
over the lake, claimed to have seen a long,
grayish. unidentified animal under the
surface.
Another incident involved a group of
reindeer herders who claimed they saw
"a giant pair of jaws" emerge from the
water and "snap up" a bird flying along
the lake's surface.
But, according to Pankov, the most
spectacular sighting occurred when a
hunter sent his dog into the lake to retriev~ a goose he had shot. Suddenly a
creature rose and caught the goose and
PURSUIT Summer 1979

136
the dog. Undaunted, the hunter made
a fire, placed some fiery coals atop a
buoyant animal skin and shoved the
'offering' into the lake. The creature rose
above the surface, snatched the prey in its
mouth and submerged. Shortly thereafter
it reappeared, making terrible noises and
thrashing around wildly.
So far, the creature has eluded scientific explorers. Many expeditions have
traveled to the lake since the 1960s, but
all have failed to come up with any concrete evidence proving the 'monster's'
existence.
SOURCE: The Star Ledger (Newark. NJ).
April 9. 1979
CREDIT: Bill Wirtis

BLACK. GLASSY SPHERE:

UfO FRAGMENT?
The accompanying photograph shows
Edward Lunguy holding a 13-pound
black, glassy sphere which Lunguy now
keeps locked in a vault because he thinks
it might be a fragment of a liFO. Formerly of Barberton. Ohio, Lunguy is
convinced he saw a UFO one July night
in 1972. He was backing his car out of
the driveway when an orange ball appeared in the sky.
"It just sat there. Then it started moving
real slow in a northeast direction. It started
to gain some altitude, then all of a sudden,
it blew up," said Lunguy.
Three weeks later, Lunguy was mowing the lawn when he came across the
glassy black object tinged with amber.
Although the object was kept and Lunguy's children played with it, it was two
years later that Lunguy's wife Suzanne
insisted he submit it for testing.
"There's no other explanation for it,"
said Robert Oldrieve, an investigator at
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Lewis Research Center in
Cleveland.
"This is the best UFO case I have come
across. This is the only one that has a
chance of having an artifact left behind,
something tangible that can be analyzed,"
said Oldrieve who tested the object independent of his work with NASA.
Oldrieve reconstructed the event witnessed by Lunguy in 1972: "It was a big,
hollow gossamer Christmas ornament
sitting in the sky. Then it shrank, turned
red and sprayed debris around."
Still, Oldrieve will not flatly agree that
the sphere might be part of that debris.
"It would be an excellent example of a
UFO if it were not for the fact that he
(Lunguy) did not see it fall and strike the
ground and run over and pick it up,"
he said.
Oldrieve had determined the object's
hardness at about seven on a scale of ten,
as measured by a diamond, he said. He
also said the substance was insoluble in
PURSUIT Summer 1979

Edward Lunguy holds the glassy object he thinks may be a remnant from
a UFO. A steel tool used to chip away samples for testing was itself chipped
in the process.

acids and had the characteristics of the

type of glass researched for NASA for use
as rocket liners or heat shield.
"It's an artificial glass ... Its composition
appears to be unique. [t melts at a very
high temperature, such as glass used for
re-entry on a space-ship," Oldrieve noted.
"We have such things, but there's no way
a 13pound chunk of it is going to come
down in a farm field in Ohio," he said.
A specialist on UFOs from Northwestern University in Illinois recently
arranged to study the object. and Oldrieve
said he would submit any findings to
NASA's Washington office.

"If [ could verify its composition, we

would be very excited about it," he said.
SOURCE: Evening Journal. Wilmington, Delaware, December 21. 1978
CREDIT: H. Hollander

TWO-fOOT-HIGH'DWARfS'
REPORTED FROM fiJI
(Although this report is from 1975, we
consider it an oldie but goldie -ed.J
According to students from Lautoka
Methodist Mission School, about 8 mysterious little figures two feet in height and

137
covered with black hair have been seen
near the school. The figures, believed to
be dwarfs, hastily moved away into nearby bushes when the children began to
approach them. As the news spread,
scores of neighbors rushed to the scene.
The "dwarfs" could not be found upon
further investigation, and seemed to have
jumped inside a pit near a bush.
Since the first sighting, dozens of people
have gathered near the pit in the hopes of
seeing the dwarfs. Some sat there for
hours with sticks and torches, in the event
the 'little men' might be harmful.
The head teacher of the Methodist
School, Mr. Narayan, said he threatened
the children with punishment for madeup stories. "but they remain firm in whatever they have said about the mysterious
figures."
Apparently six different students. ranging in age from 10 to 14, actually saw the
figures while returning home from school.
One student said: "I saw his white gleaming eyes and black hair. I was frightened."
"One showed me his teeth and then
ran away," claimed another student.
David, a student who apparently saw
eight of the little people, wanted to speak
to them but as he approached them,
"the little ones ran away."
Mr. Peniasi Tora, a long-time villager
who went to the scene after hearing the
news, mentioned that when his forefathers first came to Fiji, they saw little
men already living here.
SOURCE: Fiji TImes, July 19,1975
CREDIT: Malcolm Smith. Australia

HOG DEATHS:
ONE UP, ONE OVER
At 8 p.m. December 6, 1978 a 21-yearold Norway, South Carolina farmer, his
wife and two companions saw a circle of
white light, approximately 10 feet in
diameter, hovering atop the trees over a
hog pen.
The farmer, Richard Fanning, later
said of the incident: "I have no doubt
at all. I'll tell anyone. I was scared and
I'm not scared of many things .... Never
seen anything like it. It's the weirdest
thing I've ever seen in my life. I'm an
outdoorsman and I wouldn't have said
nothing unless the other three people saw
it too."
According to the four witnesses, after
arriving at the scene they saw the large
hovering light. and below it were two
pairs of green and red lights each the size
of a car headlight. The lights were accompanied by no noise whatever.
Fanning said, "That doesn't look right.
Let's leave." As he began the drive homeward, he said, the light followed at the
height of the car. keeping about 50 yards
distant as the green and red lights moved
alongside.

"I was going to the house to get my

gun when all of a sudden the big white
light made a U-turn behind my car and
went back above the hog pen. Then the
red and green Iights"turned around and
started back. We watched, and after three
or four minutes, all the lights went out."
Fanning said neither he nor his companions were under the influence of
alcohol, drugs or any other substance.
Fearing a repetition of the incident, Fanning and his wife spent the next two
nights with relatives and returned on the
third morning to feed the hogs.
Upon his return, Fanning said. he
found one hog "standing up dead. I kicked
him and he fell over."
A second dead hog was lying on its
side, Fanning reported. Though apparently uninjured, closer inspection revealed that the entire jawbone had been
removed "and the body was sort of like
a sponge, with all the weight gone, kind
of like jelly." (Fanning noted that the hog,
alive, weighed about 200 pounds. but as
remains, weighed about 50 pounds.)
None of the several hundred other
hogs appeared to have been injured.
To Fanning, the sighting incident and
subsequent events remain unexplained.
SOURCE: The Times and Democrat. Orange
burg. SC. Dec. 13, 1978. CREDIT: William J.

Herrmann

CHESSIE UPDATE30 YEARS AGO

Those witnesses who saw the Potomac
monster (nicknamed Chessie) last summer are not alone. Thirty years ago Lewis
Bray was discing his field with a small
tractor when a rust-colored serpent, 10
feet long and 7 inches in diameter, emerged from a pond and moved across the
field where Bray was plowing. Bray said
the creature moved by undulating vertically like a caterpillar, instead of sideways
like a snake. "I wanted to kill it to show
someone," Bray said. "I figured I was up
on that tractor, and it couldn't hurt me."
He then drove over the creature three
times, and although the tractor weighed
4000 pounds and was equipped with
discs. "I didn't even slow it down. It just
kept crawling on," he said. As he was
about to run over it a fourth time, it reared
up "like it was going to fight the tractor,
darting its tongue in and out," Bray added.
Bray became frightened and went
home to tell friends and his family. "Everybody just laughed," recalls Bray. although
several other area residents reported that
they. too, had seen a large serpent in the
area.
One farm worker, named Cockrell, reported seeing a large serpent-like creature
at the time of Bray's sighting. Cockrell,
who lives near a swamp that drains into

a creek a mile from the Potomac, heard

and saw the creature moving through the
forest. Sticks cracked as it came through
the woods, Cockrell recalled, and it scared
him so badly that he just ran from it.
SOURCE: Richmond TImesDispatch, August
18. 1979
CREDIT: #659

HISTORICAL MIBs
Here are a couple of Men-In-Black cases
from folklore, one from Norway and one
from Monterey, California.
On page 310 of the AMS Press, Inc.,
reprint of Peter Munch's book. Norse
Mythology (New York, 1970), the author
describes a kind of goblin known as vettir
in Telemark, Norway. They are no bigger
than a child of ten, and they wear gray
clothing with black hats. Note well, they
have herds of cattle called huddekroeter
(Huldre cattle). A Huldre is a type of goblin. They also have certain types of dogs
called huddebikkjer (Huldre curs).
Another, weirder case comes to us from
Randall A. Reinstedt's Ghostly Tales and
Mysterious Happenings of Old Monterey
(Ghost Town Publications, Carmel, California, 1977). On pages 47-49, Reinstedt
mentions the mysterious Dark Watchers
of the Santa Lucia Mountains of Monterey
County, California. The Dark Watchers
have been reported since before the
1930s. The author claims that famous
writers such as John Steinbec;k knew of
the Dark Watchers and that that author
described them briefly in his story, "Right."
The Dark Watchers appear as solitary
male human-appearing beings who dress
in antique clothing, sort of like Zarro.
They wear black hats, black clothes, black
boots and either black capes or long black
coats. One case of a Dark Watcher was
reported as recently as the mid-1960s by
a respected retired high school principal
on a hunting trip. Interestingly enough,
the Dark Watcher vanished like a ghost
when the startled hunter turned to point
the being out to his companions.
CREDIT: Jon Douglas Singer

BEARLY POSSIBLE
The two frightened foresters in Phillips,
Wisconsin, were treed for two hours, but
it was the black bear that put them there
that wound up with the red face. The
250-pound animal sprayed itself in the
face with a paint sprayer the men were
using to mark timber. Roy Gilge and David
Bentley were working in Flambeau State
Forest when the bear appeared and sent
them scrambling up a couple of trees.
The bear rummaged through their backpacks and managed to set off the sprayer
loaded with red paint, then wandered off.
SOURCE: Herald-News (NJ) June 3, 1979
CREDIT: Fred Wilson
PURSUIT Summer 1979

138

BOOK REVIEWS
PATHWAYS TO THE GODS: THE MYST~RY OF
THE ANDES LINES by Tony Morrison and incor-

porating the work of Gerald S. Hawkins, Harper

& Row, New York, 1979, 208 pages, $12.95.
After Paul Kosok's discovery of the 'Nasca Lines' of
Peru in 1941. Maria Reiche spent more than 3 decades
studying those curious desert lines and designs. Now,
Tony Morrison. a zoologist who has spent nearly two
decades doing documentary work in remote regions of
South America, has written a book about the Andes lines
in cooperation with Gerald S. Hawkins, author of Stonehenge Decoded.
The book contains well over 150 black and white photos,
maps and drawings pertinent to Mr. Morrison's theory as
to the origin and intended purpose of the lines and figures.
Some readers may disagree with certain conclusions that
Mr. Morrison expresses but the evidence, as it is presented, must be reckoned with.
While Maria Reiche has spent half of her adult life calculating and measuring the many configurations. Morrison
and Hawkins have used computerized data to assist them
in their conclusions. Unlike Hawkins' findings with Stonehenge, Morrison concludes after consulting with Reiche
and others that the creation of the lines, some as long as
twenty miles, were not of astronomical or calendric significance.
Mr. Morrison gives a different aspect to the possible
purpose of the lines, making this a significant book in the
study of the mystery. An index and an excellent bibliography are included.

THE ANDREASSON AFFAIR by Raymond E.

Fowler, Prentice-Hall. Inc., Englewood CIiRs,

New Jersey, 1979,239 pages, 58.95.
Since the reported experience of Betty and Barney
Hill with occupants of a UFO in 1961, serious investigation of UFO contactee and abduction cases has been
steadily gathering momentum. The Andreasson Affair
will surely help to attract attention to these events. In fact,
this reviewer has been approached by two individuals
wishing to make known their experience with "humanoids" after having learned of the publication of this book.
Raymond Fowler, the author of UFOs: Interplanetary
Visitors, has carefully recounted the experience of Betty
Andreasson as told to an investigative team from MUFON
(Mutual UFO Network) and details the conversation that
was taped while Mrs. Andreasson was in a hypnotic trance.
Luckily for the narration, Betty Andreasson has artistic
talent and was able to sketch many of the scenes inside
the UFO and beyond as she saw them.
To help extend credibility. to the Andreasson story,
Raymond Fowler has given us examples of similar or
related UFO experiences and comparison reports by such
earlier-reporting abductees as Betty and Barney Hill,
Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker.
Lengthy transcripts of dialogue between the investigators
PURSUIT Summer 1979

by Robert C. Warth

and the Andreassons. and some of the debriefing sessions,

seem tedious in places but are necessary to the intended
broad view ofthe "affair" by the author.
In all, The Andreasson Affair is a stepping stone to our
understanding of the UFO phenomenon. Several appendices, a bibliography and an index are included.
THE SEARCH FOR LOST AMERICA: THE MYSTERIES OF THE STONE RUINS by Salvatore

Michael Trento, Contemporary Books, Inc., Chicago, 1978,284 pages, 59.95.

We are proud that Salvatore Michael Trento is a member
of SITU, for he has done an excellent job in reporting his
investigations and collecting data on some of the thousands of pre-Columbian stone structures in North America.
These archaeological curiosities collectively are only
now receiving the attention they deserve as clues about
our country's former inhabitants. The Search for Lost
America is a stimulating study of Trento's findings. mostly
in the U.S. Northeast.
Mr. Trento is director of the Middletown Archaeological
Research Center in New York. He is being assisted by
many volunteers who usually can get to a newly discovered location within 24 hours to check it out. This
voluntary cooperation is spreading through his efforts
with this book and in various radio shows. He has devoted eight pages to acknowledgments of appreciation
for the help he has received.
Mr. Trento gives us explanations as to what he feels
many of the archaeological finds really are. Some of
these are exciting and contradict accepted explanations
that, in some instances. go back to the early English colonists.
This book is generously illustrated with photographs,
drawings and maps. Appendices (including a 19-page
listing of stone structures in various locations and a site
fill-in information sheet, for those wishing to help in the
search), notes and an index all help to make this an interesting and valuable tool toward -our understanding of
those who walked here before us.
THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT: PROJECT
INVISIBILITY by William L. Moore in consultation
with Charles Berlitz, Grosset & Dunlap, New York,

1979, 177 pages, 510.00.

SITU members Bill Moore with Charles Berlitz have
written a fascinating account of an alleged U.S. Navy
experiment that caused the destroyer U.S.S. Eldridge to
become invisible and possibly to teleport from one harbor
to another and back, in the fall of 1943.
Bill Moore gives us some new and rather significant
data that demands the attention of all who have heard
rumors about this World War II "experiment." The names
of a number of prominent scientists and witnesses such as
Dr. Albert Einstein, Morris K. Jessup, Carl M. Allen and

139

our own Ivan T. Sanderson are mentioned; they were involved in the intrigue of this now legendary event, the
author reports.
Mr. Moore will surely receive some criticism for the
numerous assumptions or speculations he presents in the
absence of hard facts, but he freely admits that much
information may still remain unissued. There is no doubt
that as the circulation of this book increases, new reports
will come forth to tie together the answers to a number of
questions yet unanswered.

There appears to have been more research done in

writing this book than we have seen heretofore on the
subject. Moore and Berlitz have done a commendable job
in making this book intellecutally stimulating. It leaves the
reader curious as to how much has been discovered that
is still untold by our government, ostensibly for the sake
of national security.

THE NOTES OF CHARLES FORT

Deciphered by Carl J. Pabst
ABBREVIATIONS
These abbreviations pertain to the Fort Notes which follow. Abbreviations used
in the Notes which are not found here have been printed in the two previous

issues o/Pursuit (Vol. 12, No.1 Winter and No.2 Spring).

Acad
An Reg
A.U.S.
BD
BEagl
Bib. Brit
Calif.
chars
Conn.
(Cut)
Disap
E. Haddam
European Mag.
InfConj
Intro
Jour Soc
Ibs
L. An. Sci

Academy
Annual Register
Archives of Universal Science
The Book of the Damned
Brooklyn Eagle
Bibliographie British?
California
characters
Connecticut
Illustrated
Disappearance
East Haddam
European Magazine
Inferior Conjunction
Introduction
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research
Pounds
L 'Annee Scienti/ique
(M)
[?)
Magnitude
mag
.
Mems. Boston Soc Nat Hist Memoirs 0/ the Boston Society 0/ Natural History
n.w.
Northwest
Obj
Object
phe
Phenomenon
Ph.M.
Philosophical Magazine
Q. Jour Roy Inst
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Institute
Ref.
Reference
Religio-Phil Jour.
ReligioPhiiosophical Journal
S.
South
SI. Bart
[?)
vol
Volume

1805
Aug.27

Aug 11

/ E. Haddam. Conn. / 4 p.m., tho

storm /7 p.m., q. / BA 54.
Aug. 11 / 2 explosilons) / "Moodus"
sounds / E. Haddam. Conn /
(M) / Am. J. Sci 39/339.
Aug 12 / Vesuvius / violent eruption /
Sept. 18 9:30 p.m. / Scots Magazine 1805
946/ Good see 1806329./
IReverse side) L. T. 272b /
282d / Sept 32b.

(LTJ. 2b / 282d / Sept. 32b /

63a / 123a / q. violent-Naples.
Oct 13
/ Italy / I / (Light quake /
BA 1911).
Oct 14
/ Fireball 1 Shrewsbury 1 BA 60.
Oct 15
1 Vesuvius 1 BA '54.
Ocl. 21 1 Fireball 1 Sweden 1 BA '60.
Oct 22,231 Meteor 1 York / Symons Mel.
34.
Oct 23
1 Germany 1 Fireball 1 BA '60.

Charles Fort, c. 1920

Nov
Dec. 12
Dec 30

/ (F) / near CalVi, Corsica.

ilL TJ. 3d / q (?).

/ "Moodus" sound lone
explosion 1 Am J. Sci 39/339.

1806

**

winter
Jan 2-3

1 Larvae 1 Silesia 1 (0-93).

1 China 1 II 1 (Medium quake 1

Jan 20

1 12:15 a.m. 1 (19th) / (Fr) 1

Orgon (BouchesduRhOne) 1 q's

BA 1911).

and sounds like of cannon / BA 54.

Jan 23241 Fr 1 Poitiers / 2 qs and sounds /
BA54.
Feb II/Fireball / Stockholm 1 BA '60.
Feb. 12 / Small q. 1 Emilia, Italy 1
BA'I1
Feb. 12 1 EmUia, Italy / I 1 (Small earthquake / BA 1911).
Feb 12
1 (It) / Milan / Flashes 1 sui
phurous odor 1 q 1 See for ref.
1805.
March 14 1 Inferior conjunction VenusSun 1
(A 1).

March 15 1 (Fr) / Alais 1 (D 74) 1 (metite) 1

Clay / (See Sept., 1814.) /
[Reverse side) and Valence
(Drome) 1 Bib. Univ 18/82 / Bib
Brit 37/284.
March 15 1 5:30 p.m. 1 Metite 1 Alais 1
The substance dissolved in water. 1
PURSUIT Summer 1979

140
[Reverse side) Retrospect of Discoveries 1806/357.
Feb. 24- midnight, Santa Barbara, Calif.
25
Small earthquake. BA 1911.
[Kiesewetter / / Feb. 24-25 - (Should be
March 24-25).)
Mar 25 / Mexico / great q / [BA) '11.
Ap.3
March 30 Great earthquake in Peru. BA
1911-46.
[Kiesewetter / / March 30
(The great
quake described in Peru occurred March
30,1828, not 1806).)
Ap.9-1O / Calabria, Italy / I / [Small
quake / BA 1911).
/ Volc / Lemongang / Java /
May
C.R. 70-878/ N.M.
May 17 / Metile? / Basingstoke, Hants /
BA'60.
May 17 / See Aug., 1806. / Glastonbury,
Somerset / stone 21/2 Ibs / Phil
Mag 4/8/459.
May 19 / At meeting of French Acad,
Ap. 16, 1838 (C.R. 6-514), M.
Daussy gave data for thinking that
there was a submarine volcano off
Cape Verde about 0.20' S., and
22 W. (west of Paris?). If so,
[Reverse side) abo 20 west of
Greenwich. Reported by a sea
captain, a column of smoke, 12 or
15 miles in N.W., he at 2.43'S.
and 22.55' W. / Next-see
Ap 12, 1831.
/ Ship shocks / See Nov 8-9.
Mayor
Ap19
1868./
[Reverse side) Feb 5. 1842 / Ap.
12, 1831 / Feb 20, 1861 / Sept.
10, 1868/ Oct. 13. 1878.
May 29ab./ Vesuvius / BA 54.
June 19, / Italy / I / [Small earthquake /
21
BA 1911).
July 17 /8 p.m. / broad daylight / Great
met / 1/4 diameter of moon, over
London / European Magazine
50-74 / BA '60.
[Reverse side) BA '60.
July 26 / Ball lightning down chimney and
out by door / An Reg 1806/43.
Aug 8
/ Krasnojarsk, Siberia / Tremendous shock. Violent storm. A
mountain replaced by
[Reverse side) a lake. "The country
was covered with volcanic ashes." /
BA 1854 / BA ' 11 = III [Violent
earthquake).
Aug 26- / Severest q in Rome since 1703 /
~A54.
30
Sept.23 / Stonefall at Weimar, according to
Baumhauer's Catalog but
[Reverse side) questioned in
BA'60.
Oct. 6
/ (q) / Gerace, Calabria /
BA '54/64.
Oct 14
/ Swansea, etc. / Met, great light /
BA'60.
Nov 1
/ Spain and San Salvador / great
q / [BA) '11.
Dec 17 / Ulm / q / BA '54/65.
Nov-Dec / China / I [Small quakes /
BA 1911).
PURSUIT Summer 1979

Dec 1
Dec 22

/ Lima, Peru / I i [Small quake /

BA 1911).
/ Fireball / England / BA 60.

1807
Jan 14-15/ Pau / (q) / BA 54/65.
Jan 22
/ China / I / [Small quake / BA
1911).
March 4 / Op. Mars / (A 1).
March 6 /9:45 p.m. / Metero / "immense
ball of fire" / Glasgow / Scots'
Magazine 1807-235.
March 6 / Geneva / Fireball / BA '60.
March 13 / Ichnow (Smolensko) / Metite /
A.U.S.3126.
March 25 / [Meteor)ite / Timochin,
Smolensk, Russia / F /
[Reverse side) See Bib. Brit.
35/362.
March 30 / France / I / [Small quake /
BA 1911).
/ Nurenberg / Fireball / BA 60.
Aug 9
/ Shore at Brighton and all the
Aug?
watering places on S. coast of
England covered with ladybirds. /
[Reverse side) Sci Gos. 2/ 169.
Sept. 6 / Vole / Goentoes / Java / N.M. /
C.R. 70-878.
Sept 30 / Comet / appeared 1st near sun /
London / comet like star 1st mag i
set nearly due west about 8 p.m. /
European Mag., 52-319 / In
France seen first. on 26th ( p.
437).
[Reverse side) See Venus, Oct 15.
/ [London Times), 3-d / Obj neat
Oct 27
sun / 29-2-a / [Nov.) 2-2-c /
7-2-d / 14-3-d / 31-2-b / Dec.
28-2-d / at Orkney / Comet.
Oct. 15 / Inferior conjunction Venus-Sun /
(AI).

Oct 23
Nov. 10
Nov 18
Dec. 14

Dec. 22

Dec. 22

/ [London Times), 3-c / Met /

Manchester.
/ Italy / I / [Small quake / BA
1911).
I Algiers / II / [Medium quake /
BA 1911).
/ Sound / over Weston, Conn /
3 distinct, violent explosions and
stones fell. / Am. J. Sci.,
2/28/303/
[Reverse side) See full details
2/47/1-8. / or Dec 22?
/ (F) = this date? / Weston.
Conn. / Listed in BA 54 as a q.
accompanied by a meteor.
/ 3 a.m. / Dusseldorf! q. preceded by a rumbling sound / BA 54.
/ Silesia / Polt ! Jour Soc 9/ 26.

1808
1808 and
1802
/ See Feb. 27, 1828.
[BCF, p. 409 / See 1802//.)
/ all year / / Pignerol, etc.
/ At Carniola, Germany. red snow
fell to a depth of over 5 feet. /
B Eagl, 1891, Oct 25-14-6.
Feb
/ Mexico / II [Medium earthquake! BA 1911).

Feb 8

/ (Cut) / Brioude (Haute-Loire) /

several shocks / "The first shock
was accompanied by a disturbance
of the air - like that
[Reverse side) caused by a cannon
shot. / Rept B.A. 54/66.
March 5-6/ night / Red snow / Switzerland
and Italy (vast) / Q. Jour Roy
Inst 7/189.
April 2
/ Turin, Italy / III /[Violent quake /
BA 1911).
April 2
/ Quakes in many places in France,
centering around Pignerol - but it
was preceded by a loud sound in
the air. /
[Reverse side) Ciel et Terre
16/463/ BA'l1.
Ap 8
/ 40 shocks had been counted
by the 8th at Pignerol. / Sounds
like explosions of
[Reverse side) cannon at Barga but
no shocks felt. / Rept [BA) 54/70.
April 12 / In Piedmont, centering around
Pignerol. In Rept B.A. 54/6 said
[Reverse side) that [note cut
off)ough at 5:30 p.m-.. luminous
meteors were seen. That in several
of the communes of the Alps.
shocks preceded by aerial sounds
as of innumerable stones colliding.
Ap.13
/ q / Calcutta / I [Small) / BA'l1.
Ap 14 and/ France and Switzerland / qs. /
16
B.A. '11.
.
April 16 / Quake / Again at Barga and at
La Tour, two detonations heard
and a luminous meteor observed.
/ one p.m. / Great number of
Ap.19
metiles fell in the commune of
Pievedi Casignano.
[Reverse side) in the Dept. of Taro
(formerly the duchies of Parma and
Placentia). / Archives of Universal
Science 3-26.
/ Borgo San Donino, Parma,
Ap.19
Italy / Metite / (F) / and Ph.M.
4/8/459.
[Reverse side) 40 miles east of
Piedmont / Rept BA 1860.
/ qs in the affected area / 22nd,
Ap.20
8 p. m., a waterspout passed over
Marenyas / at Barga, called a th.
storm /
[Reverse side) BA 54.
April 20 / Etna / Scots' Magazine 1808-789
says that the day before people in
Messina were much
[Reverse side) surprised to see the
streets covered with ashes. Says the
ashes had been driven by a strong
south wind from the top of the
mountain 60 miles away.
I Vole / Azores / BA 54.
May 1June 5
May 13 / Shocks. rumbling sounds reported almost every day before
13th / a red cloud was seen
[Reverse side) over the country
lying along the river Pelice / other
occasional shocks rest of year.
May 17 / Italy / I /[Small quake / BA
1911).
May 18 / See April 2.

THE SOCIETY FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE UNEXPLAINED

GOVERNING BOARD
President (and Trustee)
Vice President (and Trustee) and Director
Secretary (and Trustee)
Treasurer (and Trustee)
Trustee
Trustee

Robert C. Warth
R. Martin Wolf
Susan Malone
Greg Arend
Steven Mayne
Albena E. Zwerver

DEPARTMENTS
PURSUIT
INVESTIGATIONS
MASS MEDIA
RESEARCH
FUND RAISING

Managing Editor - R. Martin Wolf

Assistant Editor - Steven Mayne
Distribution - Martin Wiegler
Robert C. Warth - R. Martin Wolf - Steven Mayne
R. Martin Wolf - Susan Malone
Canadian Media Consultant - Michael Bradley
Robert C. Warth - Steven Mayne
Prehistoric Archaeology and Oceanography Consultant - Charles Berlitz
Gregory Arend - Steven Mayne

SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD

Dr. George A. Agogino Chairman, Department of Anthropology, and Director, Paleo-Indian
Institute, Eastern New Mexico University. (Archaeology)
Dr. Carl H. Delacato Director, The Institute for the Rehabilitation ofthe Brain Injured.
Morton. Pa. (Mentalogy)
Dr. J. Allen Hynek Director, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center.
Northwestern University. (Astronomy)
Dr. George C. Kennedy Professor of Geology, Institute of Geophysics, U.C.L.A.
(Geomorphology and Geophysics)
Dr. Martin Kruskal Program in Applied Mathematics, Princeton University.
(Mathematics)
Dr. Samuel B. McDowell Professor of Biology. Rutgers University. Newark. N.J.
(General Biology)
Dr. Vladimir Markotic Professor of Anthropology. Department of Archaeology. University
of Alberta. Canada. (Ethnosociology and Ethnology)
Dr. John R. Napier Unit of Primate Biology. Queen Elizabeth College. University
of London. (Physical Anthropology)
Dr. Michael A. Persinger Department of Psychology. Environmental Psychophysiological
Laboratory. Laurentian University; Sudbury. Ont., Canada. (Psychology)
Dr. Frank B. Salisbury Plant Science Department, College of Agriculture.
Utah State University. (Plant Physiology)
Dr. Berthold Eric Schwarz Consultant (Brain Wave Laboratory). Essex County Medical Center,
Cedar Grove. N.J. (Mental Sciences)
Dr. Roger W. Wescott Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology. Drew University.
Madison. 'N.J. (Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics)
Dr. A. Joseph Wraight Chief Geographer. U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
(Geography and Oceanography)
Dr. Robert K. Zuck Professor and Chairman. Department of Botany, Drew University.
Madison, N.J. (Botany)