Was listening to a 'Mysteries of the Mind' broadcast on the net today and it featured a Welsh chap and a Canadian.

Their theory was so fantastic that I'm not sure I got it all, might have to listen to the broadcast again. Anyway, have you been aware of all the power cuts all over the world? US, Georgia, UK, Denmark, Italy and various other places? Well their theory is that it's the powers-that-be getting us ready for many more power cuts and maybe a global cut lasting 72 hours. And what will cause these cuts, you may well ask.

Apparently it has something to do with the pyramids and the sphinx. The Egyptian authorities have erected a 22ft high wall all around the Giza plateau and are 'dissuading' foreign archeologists and tourists from visiting. My source tells me that this is because something of earth shattering proportions will happen in December. They're not quite sure what it will be but it has a lot to do with alignments of planets and galaxies and some mysterious 'real reason' for the pyramids.

Not much more I can add at this time. Probably nobody is interested anyway. But just thought I'd mention it because according to same source we might find empty supermarket shelves very soon as people begin to panic buy when this event becomes public.

Will let you know if I hear more

Scully

Oooooooh, intriguing, thanks Dana, I hadn't heard this - will you keep us updated if you hear anything else?

end of the world is nigh then!

oh dear never mind!.....if it happens theres nothing we can do, so I will take a calm attitude to what ever they throw at us!

would be good to have a heasd up thoguh, so please tell us more if you find out

BTW....are you the real Scully? you have a very enquiring mind!

I feel the plot for a 'Stargate' or 'First Contact' film coming on

The Master

Hmm, not sure I should answer that



Did you ever see an SG-1 episode where somebody from another world, suffering from amnesia, was scriptwriting for a tv show which bore an uncanny resemlence to the 'real' Star Gate programme? Instead of stopping the show the government allowed it to go ahead so that if in the future the world discovered they had a Star-gate they could claim plausible deniability.

Who's to say X-files, Star Trek, SG-1 etc are not all out there in the event that certain people, in the future, need to claim plausible deniability Think about it

Scully

I don't think the Government is intelligent enough to think of this

The Master

One of the scenarios given by the speakers on that radio show, for what might happen in December is a natural disaster of some sort

And there are plenty waiting to happen, notably an eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano (http://www.rense.com/general41/monster.htm) or even the Cumbre Vieja volcano, on the Canary Island of La Palma (good article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/naturaldisasters...068213,00.html)

But have any of you ever heard of the Hendaye Cross? It is a cross with some very strange (maybe alchemaical) symbols carved into it. I believe it is in Northern Spain in the foothills of the Pyrennees. These symbols have been pondered over for hundreds of years and it seems the Nazi's were very interested in it, as they were with many things paranormal or metaphysical.

Somebody worked out that what the symbols meant was that the autumnal equinox in 2002 would see alignments of planets and stars that would form a 'cube of space' and this would either bring an end to the world as we know it or take us into a new era or something like that. I'd read this and on the night of the equinox, 22 September 2002 I was gazing up at the sky, it must have been between midnight and one o'clock. Of course I saw nothing, felt nothing and decided it was all in somebody's mind.

So I went to bed and as I couldn't sleep I turned on Radio 5 live. The presenter was asking somebody about, 'how much damage is there?', he sounded quite excited and he went on to say they were getting lots of calls etc. I wondered what the heck was going on. Eventually I realised they were talking about an earthquake. It was centred around Dudley in the Midlands, you may remember seeing it on the news. So, I wonder if the 'cube of space' had something to do with it? Probably not, but it put the fear of God into me for a an hour or so

Scully

Hmmmm, I just put down my sonic disrupter and there was an Earthquake in the middle of the atlantic - did I cause it, or was it co-incidence?

Every 30 seconds an earthquake occurs somewhere on this planet.

'Cubes of space' make me think of wooly thinking pseudo-science.

The Master

What was it Shakespeare wrote? 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy......'

Misty

I was dicussing this with a friend and we were wondering if it has anything to do with the scrolls which are fabled to be buried in the spinx

still not panicking though..........yet!!

Ah, yes the Hall of Records. Could be. I had another listen to some of the show again and I'm still not sure what it's all about but they mentioned that the they have the floor plans for part of the Giza complex and possibly if they had the entire floor plans including those for the underground chambers beneath the Sphinx they might find it is a blue print for some sort of machine. What the machine might do heaven knows but it's an interesting concept

Scully

I do beleive that the egyptains weren'to totally human!

everything was very complex, the pyramids for starters, I know there have been tv shows about how they were made.....but do we believe,
we were not there at the time so no one will ever really know what happened.

all scientist folk can do is summise what might of happened from evidence they think they might have.

I think the egyptians were some sort of aliens, if you put the 2 big pyraminds together, base side down, it is suppose to work out as a scaled down version of the earths circumfrance or something.
a coinidence dont ya think!

so what are the spinx about? maybe a big machine, fasinating though to think about all the stuff we dont know!

I think there is a lot that we don't understand or have misunderstood. I don't believe that we are the most highly developed civilization that has ever been on earth.

Whether previous civilizations have been extra-terrestrial in origin is something that we shouldn't dismiss out of hand, I believe. There are some fascinating theories about our origins and who is to say they're wrong? Science still hasn't found the 'missing link' so who's to say that we weren't genetically engineered by some advanced civilization? Science can only tell us so much. Here is an article that I found very interesting: http://www.nexusmagazine.com/ETcreation.html
In fact the whole site of Nexus Magazine has some fascinating articles.

Scully

True, science can only tell us so much ... have a read of the following.

*************

The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science
By ROBERT L. PARK

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is investing close to a million dollars in an obscure Russian scientist's antigravity machine, although it has failed every test and would violate the most fundamental laws of nature. The Patent and Trademark Office recently issued Patent 6,362,718 for a physically impossible motionless electromagnetic generator, which is supposed to snatch free energy from a vacuum. And major power companies have sunk tens of millions of dollars into a scheme to produce energy by putting hydrogen atoms into a state below their ground state, a feat equivalent to mounting an expedition to explore the region south of the South Pole.

There is, alas, no scientific claim so preposterous that a scientist cannot be found to vouch for it. And many such claims end up in a court of law after they have cost some gullible person or corporation a lot of money. How are juries to evaluate them?

Before 1993, court cases that hinged on the validity of scientific claims were usually decided simply by which expert witness the jury found more credible. Expert testimony often consisted of tortured theoretical speculation with little or no supporting evidence. Jurors were bamboozled by technical gibberish they could not hope to follow, delivered by experts whose credentials they could not evaluate.

In 1993, however, with the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. the situation began to change. The case involved Bendectin, the only morning-sickness medication ever approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It had been used by millions of women, and more than 30 published studies had found no evidence that it caused birth defects. Yet eight so-called experts were willing to testify, in exchange for a fee from the Daubert family, that Bendectin might indeed cause birth defects.

In ruling that such testimony was not credible because of lack of supporting evidence, the court instructed federal judges to serve as "gatekeepers," screening juries from testimony based on scientific nonsense. Recognizing that judges are not scientists, the court invited judges to experiment with ways to fulfill their gatekeeper responsibility.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer encouraged trial judges to appoint independent experts to help them. He noted that courts can turn to scientific organizations, like the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to identify neutral experts who could preview questionable scientific testimony and advise a judge on whether a jury should be exposed to it. Judges are still concerned about meeting their responsibilities under the Daubert decision, and a group of them asked me how to recognize questionable scientific claims. What are the warning signs?

I have identified seven indicators that a scientific claim lies well outside the bounds of rational scientific discourse. Of course, they are only warning signs -- even a claim with several of the signs could be legitimate.

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media. The integrity of science rests on the willingness of scientists to expose new ideas and findings to the scrutiny of other scientists. Thus, scientists expect their colleagues to reveal new findings to them initially. An attempt to bypass peer review by taking a new result directly to the media, and thence to the public, suggests that the work is unlikely to stand up to close examination by other scientists.

One notorious example is the claim made in 1989 by two chemists from the University of Utah, B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, that they had discovered cold fusion -- a way to produce nuclear fusion without expensive equipment. Scientists did not learn of the claim until they read reports of a news conference. Moreover, the announcement dealt largely with the economic potential of the discovery and was devoid of the sort of details that might have enabled other scientists to judge the strength of the claim or to repeat the experiment. (Ian Wilmut's announcement that he had successfully cloned a sheep was just as public as Pons and Fleischmann's claim, but in the case of cloning, abundant scientific details allowed scientists to judge the work's validity.)

Some scientific claims avoid even the scrutiny of reporters by appearing in paid commercial advertisements. A health-food company marketed a dietary supplement called Vitamin O in full-page newspaper ads. Vitamin O turned out to be ordinary saltwater.

2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work. The idea is that the establishment will presumably stop at nothing to suppress discoveries that might shift the balance of wealth and power in society. Often, the discoverer describes mainstream science as part of a larger conspiracy that includes industry and government. Claims that the oil companies are frustrating the invention of an automobile that runs on water, for instance, are a sure sign that the idea of such a car is baloney. In the case of cold fusion, Pons and Fleischmann blamed their cold reception on physicists who were protecting their own research in hot fusion.

3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection. Alas, there is never a clear photograph of a flying saucer, or the Loch Ness monster. All scientific measurements must contend with some level of background noise or statistical fluctuation. But if the signal-to-noise ratio cannot be improved, even in principle, the effect is probably not real and the work is not science.

Thousands of published papers in para-psychology, for example, claim to report verified instances of telepathy, psychokinesis, or precognition. But those effects show up only in tortured analyses of statistics. The researchers can find no way to boost the signal, which suggests that it isn't really there.

4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal. If modern science has learned anything in the past century, it is to distrust anecdotal evidence. Because anecdotes have a very strong emotional impact, they serve to keep superstitious beliefs alive in an age of science. The most important discovery of modern medicine is not vaccines or antibiotics, it is the randomized double-blind test, by means of which we know what works and what doesn't. Contrary to the saying, "data" is not the plural of "anecdote."

5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries. There is a persistent myth that hundreds or even thousands of years ago, long before anyone knew that blood circulates throughout the body, or that germs cause disease, our ancestors possessed miraculous remedies that modern science cannot understand. Much of what is termed "alternative medicine" is part of that myth.

Ancient folk wisdom, rediscovered or repackaged, is unlikely to match the output of modern scientific laboratories.

6. The discoverer has worked in isolation. The image of a lone genius who struggles in secrecy in an attic laboratory and ends up making a revolutionary breakthrough is a staple of Hollywood's science-fiction films, but it is hard to find examples in real life. Scientific breakthroughs nowadays are almost always syntheses of the work of many scientists.

7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation. A new law of nature, invoked to explain some extraordinary result, must not conflict with what is already known. If we must change existing laws of nature or propose new laws to account for an observation, it is almost certainly wrong.

I began this list of warning signs to help federal judges detect scientific nonsense. But as I finished the list, I realized that in our increasingly technological society, spotting voodoo science is a skill that every citizen should develop.

(Robert L. Park is a professor of physics at the University of Maryland at College Park and the director of public information for the American Physical Society)

Ok, read it.

Why does this appear?

Is it because he has certain qualifications we will be more likely to believe him?

Hmm, 'suggests'. Not a very scientific word.

Hard but not impossible!

We'll forget about all the drugs that have had to be recalled because of adverse side effects, shall we? It might tell you what works in SOME instances, it does not tell you what works in ALL instances.

Hmm, does that mean scientists have NEVER been wrong? Scientists talk of LAWS, well according to the laws of aerodynamics bees can't fly, maybe they should go to law school and start walking.


Certainly there are numerous instances of people using pseudo science to con people into parting with hard earned cash. But there have been numerous instances of so called scientists pooh-poohing new discoveries because they don't conform with their thinking but have later had to eat their words.

Basically we are all human beings (at least I hope we are). Scientists may have training but they are as flawed as any other human being. They are not perfect, they make mistakes the same as everybody else.

If science is so great why do people still die from cancer and other diseases? Why aren't we travelling the depths of space? It's because scientists haven't developed the means, nor have they developed the means to explain what we now call paranormal. They may have greater understanding of how things work but they have a harder time explaining the HOW. We are arrogant if we think we know it all. When science cannot explain something we are expected to dismiss it out of hand.

Who knows, maybe one day scientists will find the means to explain what is now unexplainable. They've not done too badly so far, but they still don't know everything.

Scully

[quote]Is it because he has certain qualifications we will be more likely to believe him?[/quote]

He's not asking you to believe him, merely to recognise the unscientific approach of pseudo-science so that you are able to make your own judgments

[quote][quote]The researchers can find no way to boost the signal, which suggests that it isn't really there.
[/quote] Hmm, 'suggests'. Not a very scientific word. [/quote]

Are you saying that as he has used (in your opinion) an un-scientific word, his whole arguement is false? Irrational dismissal.

[quote][quote]

The image of a lone genius who struggles in secrecy in an attic laboratory and ends up making a revolutionary breakthrough is a staple of Hollywood's science-fiction films, but it is hard to find examples in real life. [/quote] Hard but not impossible! [/quote]

Isn't that what he said? 'Hard to find examples in real life' in no way means impossible

[quote][quote]The most important discovery of modern medicine is not vaccines or antibiotics, it is the randomized double-blind test, by means of which we know what works and what doesn't.[/quote] We'll forget about all the drugs that have had to be recalled because of adverse side effects, shall we? It might tell you what works in SOME instances, it does not tell you what works in ALL instances.[/quote]

A side effects have nothing to do with whether a drug works or not. It is a secondary effect, separate from the main effect of the drug.

[quote][quote]The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation. A new law of nature, invoked to explain some extraordinary result, must not conflict with what is already known. If we must change existing laws of nature or propose new laws to account for an observation, it is almost certainly wrong.
[/quote] Hmm, does that mean scientists have NEVER been wrong? Scientists talk of LAWS, well according to the laws of aerodynamics bees can't fly, maybe they should go to law school and start walking.[/quote]

However, the laws of aerodynamics were added to in a consistant way to explain bee's flying. The new laws encompassed and explained all the old effects as well as the new. What the writer is suggesting here are new laws specifically designed to explain one effect only, that cannot explain the rest of the observable effects already explained by existing laws.


[quote]Certainly there are numerous instances of people using pseudo science to con people into parting with hard earned cash.  But there have been numerous instances of so called scientists pooh-poohing new discoveries because they don't conform with their thinking but have later had to eat their words.[/quote]

And they have eaten their words because of scientifically repeatable experiments and constant theories that have demonstrated the new discoveries and combined them with existing laws - this does not happen with pseudo-science

[quote]Basically we are all human beings (at least I hope we are).  Scientists may have training but they are as flawed as any other human being.  They are not perfect, they make mistakes the same as everybody else.[/quote]

Quite true, but the scientific method exists so that they are able to recognise their mistakes and move on, rather than clinging to a, incorrect theory.

[quote]If science is so great why do people still die from cancer and other diseases?  Why aren't we travelling the depths of space?  It's because scientists haven't developed the means, nor have they developed the means to explain what we now call paranormal.  They may have greater understanding of how things work but they have a harder time explaining the HOW.  We are arrogant if we think we know it all.  When science cannot explain something we are expected to dismiss it out of hand. [/quote]

Scientist know full well that they do not 'know it all'. Things are not dismissed out of hand if proof can be produced, along with verifiable experiments and repeatable effects. The current theories surrounding the paranormal can provide none.

[quote]Who knows, maybe one day scientists will find the means to explain what is now unexplainable.  They've not done too badly so far, but they still don't know everything.[/quote]

And until that time, pseudo-science theories should not be put forward as 'real effects' unless you can produce verifiable results that show the theory to be correct.

The Master

Perhaps, but there is more to human existence than Science. Occasionally we see miracles that not even science can explain.



Not entirely false, merely 'suggestive' that we should dimiss everything that science cannot explain as false.

Yes, but once again he uses language to 'suggest' that it's so rare as to be meaningless.



I'm really sure that all the victims of those killed by these drugs will very reassured by that. That's sort of like saying 'the operation was a success but the patient died'. But hey! It doesn't matter we did it in a very scientific way.



So laws, as written by scientists, are not immutable then? It took time to 'write' this new law which was in fact already there awaiting discovery. What other laws, I wonder, have not been discovered.



Exactly. And because they cannot prove things now does not mean they will not be able to prove things in the future.




How can a scientist be absolutely sure that every variable has been taken into consideration when trying to repeat an experiment into the paranormal? There maybe certain conditions that have to exist before 'absolute proof' can be obtained and who is to say exactly what those conditions might be if one cannot quantify them in the first place?

To some Science is the new religion and some scientists are the new 'fundamentalists'. Surely science is about discovery and to completely dismiss something because it cannot at present be proved true or false is the sign of a closed mind.

I believe this discussion came out of a phrase I used 'the cube of space'. It was not a scientific term and it wasn't meant to be a scientific term. I had mentioned earlier the Hendaye Cross which is associated with certain esoteric beliefs, not scientific beliefs. I wasn't, and I don't believe the person who wrote the article I mentioned was either, talking about 'science'. And there maybe earthquakes every 30 seconds across the earth. But how often is there one strong enough in England to cause damage and consternation, especially coincidental with a predicted event in the sky? Certainly not every thirty seconds. I experienced a coincidence, I turned it into joke but you seem to have taken it seriously. This is a sci-fi forum, i.e. science fiction. A place where you can let your imagination run away with you, loosen up


Scully

!!!!!!!

Please don't turn this into a personal attack.

I merely responded to your critique of the interesting article I posted.

I want people to judge ideas and theories put forward for themselves. Science simply provides a framework for doing this. What I don't want are people who see, for example, orbs on a photograph to say "oh .. they must be ghosts because everyone else is talking about orbs as ghosts". I want them to say "Ok .. they could be ghosts, but lets try and scientifically eliminate everything else first". If they turn out to be something else we've learned something and can move on. If they cannot be explained, no problem, but that should be emphasised. You can't say that they are ghosts simply because you can't explain them - If they were ghosts, you would be able to explain why and how they appear on film

The Master

I'm sorry if you thought this was a personal attack, it was not my intention to attack you personally but to put an alternative view. I just thought it was getting a bit silly and a bit serious for this forum.

But some people think there are things that transcend what we call science. Whether they are right or wrong it is their choice to do so. If ghosts cannot be explained using the scientific knowledge we have at present then why shouldn't people chose to believe what they want?

There is something there and unless science can explain what it is it should keep an open mind. After all, everything we see, hear, touch etc only takes place within our brains, everything we experience is because of a set of chemical reactions and electrical impulses. Taking it to it's basic level, nobody can prove anything absolutely.

Once again, I'm sorry if you thought my remark was in any way a personal attack, I really wasn't meant that way.

Scully

Well I do hope that supermarket shelves will be emptied in December, maybe I could then have some decent time off for Xmas! Come on you Egyptians!
IMHO absoutely nothing will happen that doesn't happen every hour of the day, 7 days a week. There are too many 'experts' around who claim to have the secret of hidden knowledge. It always seems to remain hidden too.
Has anything truely alien/supernatural ever happened in front of the world's media? I am quite open minded and have had some strange supernatural experiences myself but I never trust self procalimed experts of the unknown on radio and lecture circuits.
One day I might be surprised

Saw a doco on this a couple of weeks back, scary stuff in all reality.

Didn't they used to have proof that people could not travel above 60 miles per hour. Since that's blatantly incorrect, what about speed of light travel etc.

Like Eckie l wont be holding my breath for some sort of event going down at Giza. I believe the local government is fearing terrorist attacks centered on the Pyramids, ergo the fence and tightened security. They had a terrorist attack up the Nile at one of the other sites a while back which resulted in a lot of people being killed.

There are loads of interesting places I'd like to visit in the world but there is so much unrest it puts me off. The pyramids being the obvious one